This week's European PlayStation Store update is jam-packed with classic PlayStation 3 games, alongside a sprinkling of tarted-up HD classics to boot.
BioShock (£11.99), Ridge Racer 7: 3D License Version (£14.99) plus Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves (£14.99 each) all arrive to download.
New to PlayStation 3 is the previously Wii-exclusive Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection (£16.99, or £11.99 each for Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles). These co-operative on-rails shooters retell the story of the early Resident Evil games, with slices of new story added in for good measure.
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The PlayStation 3 is five years old in Europe.
Namco Bandai has unveiled another instalment in the classic Ridge Racer series.
The delayed European launch has left the PlayStation 3 with something of a problem - a sizeable proportion of its debut games are already available on the Xbox 360. Indeed, the likes of Fight Night Round 3 have been maturing on the shelves for over a year, while many of the others debuted on the 360 over four months ago. Internet gossip and many online reviews also point to several of these PS3 conversions suffering in comparison to the 360 'originals', an astonishing state of affairs considering that Sony's hardware is newer technology with a price tag that dwarfs that of Microsoft's console.
Of course, it's early days for the PlayStation 3 and any new piece of gaming technology takes time for game developers to get to grips with. That said, many studios (off the record of course) are not entirely happy with the SDK that Sony provides for PlayStation 3 development. The word is that Microsoft's programming environment gives better results more quickly. There's also the question of memory - Xbox 360 gives developers a full 512MB to do with as they will. PlayStation 3 on the other hand divides its internal RAM into two 256MB portions, with one section dedicated entirely to the NVIDIA-derived graphics technology. Up until recently, 64MB of the PS3's system memory was also sectioned off for OS use only, meaning that memory becomes far more of a precious commodity when developing on the Sony platform.
Clearly the PS3 is far from technically deficient up against the 360. While the 360's triple-core PowerPC CPU is an extreme piece of technology, Cell is no slouch in itself. It may only have a single core, but its satellite SPU processors are astonishingly powerful - just one of them can decode 300 MP3s simultaneously in real-time, and there are six of them available to be used in concert while the main CPU runs the core game logic.
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Dear Namco,
DIFFICULTY LEVELS, DORKFACE!
Signed, me.
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With Ridge Racer 7 now less than two weeks away from release in Japan (yes, I am hyperventilating a bit), comments from producer Hideo Teramoto have shed some more light on hard disk usage and single-player/multiplayer separation.
Speaking to Famitsu PS2, in an article partially translated by IGN, Teramoto said that the game would offer a hard-disk install option, allowing you to store 5GB worth of data on the PlayStation 3's internal drive to speed things up.
As for the separation of single- and multiplayer, there won't be any. Instead, Teramoto says, the money and ranks you accumulate will apply both online and offline. As previously revealed, the game offers 14-player online races, just as the 360 version, which Teramoto also worked on, did - with co-op races as well as other modes.
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At one point during Ken Kutaragi's Tokyo Game Show keynote, he took time to emphasise how important innovation was, and how the industry can't rely on throwing out sequels if we expect it to grow during the next generation. Good point well made, but one made having just shown a video showreel featuring Devil May Cry 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Final Fantasy XIII and Ridge Racer 7.
Phew. It's all fine. The PlayStation 3 will be a roaring success after all.
That's because according to IGN, which has been rifling through the latest issue of Famitsu Weekly, Ridge Racer 7 will be among the games that appear alongside the console at its Japanese launch on 11th November.
Also on the list is everyone's favourite historical simulation of giant enemy crabs, Genji 2, while there's also something called SEGA Golf Club, Namco Bandai's Gundam: Target in Sight, and Konami's Mahjong Fight Club.
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Ridge Racer 7 will support 14 player online races and allow you to customise vehicles for the first time when it makes its debut on PlayStation 3.
That's according to Japanese mag Famitsu, which has spilled a few juicy details on the upcoming Namco Bandai racer.
Online Battle mode will allow 14 players to go head-to-head or team up for co-op races with relay, time attack, team battle and pair attack options.
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Ever since the original PlayStation, Ridge Racer's been ever-present at the launch of new Sony console platforms - and it sounds like PlayStation 3 will be no exception, following this week's announcement that Ridge Racer 7 is in development.
