131w ago - Today Sony's Senior Social Media Specialist Rey Gutierrez has posted up this weeks new PS3, PSP and PSN releases.

To quote: The third installment in the Assassins Creed franchise arrives on the PS3 this week and the blog boyz are ready to behead and slay some Templars -- Cesare Borgia, you're going down, son.

Igniting mass destruction and triggering powerplays goes portable this week when one my favorite racing games of 2010, Split/Second, comes to the PSP.

In other PSP news: A popular but previously delayed minis title has a new date; you'll be dribbling and shouting "Boom Shakalaka!"; and Criterion and EA are on Hot Pursuit for speed.

PlayStation 3

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - The critically acclaimed single-player experience of Assassin's Creed is back and better than ever as Ezio returns in an epic struggle against the powerful Templar Order.

Now a legendary Master Assassin, Ezio must journey into Italy's greatest city, Rome, center of power, greed and corruption to strike at the heart of the enemy. Defeating the corrupt...

131w ago - Just a few days back we saw a video of PS Downgrade software by the PSJailBreak Team in action, and today graf_chokolo has posted on xorloser's blog (linked above) that he has decrypted PS3 Firmware 3.50 and while it's still a WIP it could very well lead to a free public PlayStation 3 downgrader alternative.

To quote: I am able now to decrypt and decompress CORE_OS_PACKAGE.pkg from PS3 PUP-Files. The decrypted and decompressed package is a copy of FLASH region where all the important SELFs and isolated SPUs stored, e.g. lv1.self or isoldr.

So, now i could downgrade PS3 by writing this decrypted image to FLASH manually, without Update Manager from HV. In fact, Update Manager just do this But the problem is, that the SHA-1 hash values for these files are stored not in flash but in SC EEPROM and i don't have access to it yet

Here is a snippet from CORE_OS_PACKAGE.pkg 3.15:

Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

00000000 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 6F FF E0 .............oÿà
00000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 60 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 .......`........
00000020 63 72 65 73 65 72 76 65 64 5F 30 00 00 00 00 00 creserved_0.....
00000030...

131w ago - Today PS3 homebrew developers SKFU and iQD (with some coding by Pillum) have released their latest creation, a PC application they call the PSN Tool version 2.0 for PlayStation 3 users!

Download: The PSN Tool 2.0 for PS3

To quote: Yep, we are still alive guys! To proove that, today our public release of our newest creation.

The PSN Tool Feature list:

• Patchscan in 45(!) PSN environments
• Range & scan
• Direct PKG file download
• PSN Registration
• Store Collection
• User Info
• User Trophy Info

User Info & Trophy Info Details:

To use those features you require keyfiles. For doubts about the legal situation we won't include those in the download package.

To get information/trophies about the user of your choice, enter his/her nickname in the "Input nickname here..." field, choose the region he lives in via the table next to it (USA/EU/JAP) and press "User Info" or "Trophy Info".

If we find the time we may release an update as there still a lot on the TODO-list:

131w ago - PlayStation: The Official Magazine Editor in Chief Gary Steinman has revealed today to fans that InFamous 2 for PS3 has hit the latest PlayStation: The Official Magazine cover.

To quote: We just got back from the printers a big box of the Holiday issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine -- and it might be my favorite one yet.

For starters, there's our spectacular cover story: inFamous 2. We spent a full day with the fine folks at Sucker Punch, seeing aspects of the game that no one outside of the studio has ever witnessed, and getting a chance to go hands-on with Cole MacGrath in new areas of the New Orleans-inspired setting.

All the electrifying details are revealed inside our lavish 10-page feature, along with world-exclusive screens, juicy new tidbits about the story, and a guided tour of New Marais' first island.

We've also scored a big scoop with the first hands-on with Mass Effect 2 on PS3, including details on how developer BioWare will ease us PlayStation gamers into their epic sci-fi RPG (since the original game wasn't released on PS3). Nifty stuff.

And it wouldn't be a holiday issue if there wasn't a gift guide....

131w ago - SCEA Marketing Manager Mark Valledor has shared several videos today spotlighting LittleBigPlanet PS3 updates including LBP2 Beta costumes.

To quote: Remembering Costumes

Remember the first time you played LittleBigPlanet? Remember the first thing you did? For us, it was opening the POP-IT and customizing our own little Sackboy (or Sackgirl).

I'm sure most of you remember dressing your own little Sackboy - and as we reminisce, we're reminded of a few community gems that we thought we should share...

Costume Montages

sposim94 has creatively put together a two pieces we love with tons of LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2 beta costumes:








sposim94: We can't wait to see what you do with the costumes in LittleBigPlanet 2!

Over on LittleBigPlanetCentral, they got together and created a brilliant group photo.

Leftover Birthday Cake on The PlayStation Store!

Speaking of costumes - remember all the "Special" DLC that popped up for free on the PlayStation Store? Well, they're coming back!