The Best "Playstation Thursday" Ever? This was a good week for Playstation 3 owners, with the online PSN store updated in a very big way yesterday (Thursday). For one thing the highly anticipated Haze demo is online; arguably one of the the most anticipated PS3 exclusive game titles, which is in stores in mere weeks. The demo allows for single player gaming as well as co-op play with up to three of your friends; cool. Yet what really spiked the ball this week is how they added two additional demos as well. Borne Conspiracy is a game based on a Bourne story that has yet to be seen in theaters; the demo of the game is also available. Racing games will also enjoy a demo of Grid. Did I mention all three demos are totally free? Adding to the fun (literally) is an add-on pack for Pixeljunk Monsters for just $5.99, as well as some new Guitar Hero and Rock Band music tracks. Top it all off with a bunch of great videos to download for free, including a sneak peek at an intriguing new first person puzzle game called Mirror's Edge. In short; a very major week for Playstation 3 owners, who are probably pretty happy right now!

Bioshock: The Movie? While this has been in the rumor mill for quite awhile, this week it became official: Universal and Take Two Interactive are joining forces to create a movie based on last year's hit action game, Bioshock. The game's story centers on a strange underwater city, now seemingly desolate of any human life, where scientists left polite society to conduct some particularly bizarre experiments that they'd be unable to do in the "real world." Of course gamers know that already, though for anyone who did not know the story yet; this is going to make one whale of a good movie. Producing and directing the project is Gore Verbinski, who was the guy behind the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, as well as the thriller The Ring.

Microsoft Calls Out Sony On "Promises." In my personal opinion, anyone who is too busy calling someone else out on their own unmet promises, might be just looking for a red herring for their own unmet promises. That said; no sooner could you ask "Is Windows Vista bug free yet?" then Microsoft calls Sony out for allegedly not fulfilling the promises it made for its new Playstation 3 system. In an article by Next Generation.com, Microsoft representative Aaron Greenberg calls out Sony for failing to deliver on the games promised, the online content promised, as well as the lack of Playstation Home as of yet. Mind you; it's not like a few promo videos of Gears of War 2 are going to keep me from realizing that the last exclusive game title I played on my Xbox 360 was Halo 3 last summer. I'm not trying to start a flame war here; I'm just saying. Maybe if Aaron would concentrate on releasing Gears of War 2 as early as possible, he'd have less time looking over Sony's shoulder and wondering what they're doing. You know what I mean?

Mass Effect Won't Be Mass-ively Copy Protected. There has been some worry as of late that a game as highly anticipated as Mass Effect for the PC, would be given an egreciously stiff copy protection scheme. One report alleged that the game design team was planning on a need for the gamer to "verify" their edition of the game every single time they booted the game; a practice that would mean you had to wait several minutes just to start playing, every single day. Yet according to a report by Shacknews, the actual copy protection of the game will be far less strict. The only times you will need to verify your copy of the game, is when you are already using the internet for downloading new content, like new level maps, new missions, or a game patch. That sounds fair enough.

That 360 Motion Controller Rumor. There's a lot of talk this week that next week could bring Xbox 360 owners the one thing those other two system have that 360 currently lacks: motion sensitivity in the controller. Such rumors are mentioned by sites like kotaku, which claims that "According to sources that will go unnamed, Microsoft may be showing its Xbox 360 motion controller as early as next week to press, a controller geared specifically for Banjo Kazooie 3 gameplay. In fact, we've heard that select members of the press have already seen the controller—in use on the next Banjo Kazooie title—in action.".

The NES Coffee Table. Check out these online photos of an ingenious little coffee table for any video game fan. In short it's a glass coffee table with a replica of a gigantic classic Nintendo game controller underneath. There is even a Youtube video online of the coffee table in use by the lucky people who own it.

Final News Byte This Week: The 15,000 Dollar NES Game. This final news byte is actually "bumped" from last week, though for anyone who missed it who gets teased for keeping every game they ever played, may I present to you: the $15 thousand dollar video game! What would you spend for a classic NES game? Well, if you own a Nintendo Wii, the answer is usually five bucks; the equivalent price of "500 points" needed to download a standard NES title from the Wii's online Virtual Store. In the case of James Baker, however, the eBay bid would be for 15 grand. The reason: the auction was for a gold colored cartridge made especially for the 1990 Nintendo World Championships. The cartridge was one of only 26 in existence, which I suppose is worth the high bid, to some people. Said Baker in an article by Kotaku: "I've avoided collecting carts for a while — I always looked at them as a slippery slope, since there are just so many collectible carts out there to get. When I started, I concentrated on systems — I'm up to 130 now."

-------------------------------

 News we missed...?

Be your own reporter at Techtite's Letters page!