Sales of Sony's portable handheld gaming device, the Sony PSP, fell 50% compared to the same time last year. Sony today filed its Q2 financial results, showing a slight increase in PlayStation 3 sales (3.5 million consoles up from 3.2 million) but unfortunately the PSP tanked, going from three million sales last year to only 1.5 million sold over the same time frame in 2010.

 

To put the sales drop in perspective, Sony's 10 year old PlayStation 2 console actually outsold the PSP by 100 000 units for the year thus far.

 

Before game developers Bungie had made a name for itself with the infamous Halo series on the Xbox 360, the studio was best known for creating the Marathon series of shooters on the Apple Mac.

 

Steve Jobs was apparently looking into buying the developers to make new titles for the Mac, so when he heard that Microsoft had snapped up the now famous studio, he was royally mad. “As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called,” said former Microsoft vice president of game publishing, Ed Fries.

 

"He was mad at [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we'd just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer." The story goes that he was so mad he needed to be called back and calmed down. To ease the tension Microsoft then made a deal with Apple to port some PC games to the Macintosh. 

 

It does appear that Jobs truly does have an eye for a winning team when he sees it, the question is, would Halo have happened if Bungie had stayed with Apple? We're not so sure.

 

 

 

Veteran fans of the Need for Speed series of racing games may harbour fond memories of the 1998 classic, Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, we certainly do. This year EA is revisiting the cops vs robbers racing genre with a new title simply named Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.

 

Developed by Criterion Games and coming to the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on the 19th of November, Hot Pursuit will pit hardened street racers against elite highway patrol officers in a title that is sure to get that adrenaline gland working in overtime. And this isn't any ordinary police officers either, these guys use Lamborghini’s, Koenigsegg's and Bugatti Veyron's to hunt down illegal speedsters. We can't wait to challenge our friends to a game of extreme highway cat and mouse, but while we wait for the release, check out this awesome trailer showing just how bad-ass highway cops can be.

 

 

 

EA's is rewarding buyers of its latest modern military first person shooter, Medal of Honor, by releasing two new downloadable content packs next week. 

 

Clean Sweep will be a freely downloadable add-on that will add a new deathmatch mode with the rules: two teams, four minutes, and no respawns. Clean Sweep also adds two brand new maps to the package.

 

The second add-on will be Hot Zone, a king of the hill mode that will also feature two brand new maps. The Hot Zone DLC will cost Xbox 360 players 800 Microsoft point while PC and PS3 gamers can expect to pay $9.99 USD.

 

 

 

Finally the time has come for South African gamers to jump in and enjoy the latest adventure from the world of Fable and Peter Molyneux, since it’s being released today locally. The highly anticipated role-playing game (RPG) sees you as the prince (or princess) of the kingdom of Albion, ruled by your increasingly tyrannical brother.

 

Moving through an amazing adventure you have to rally followers from across the kingdom to overthrow your brother and then claim the throne for yourself either as heroic tyrant or as the new despot.

 

The game is available from today exclusively on the Xbox 360 with the standard edition selling for R699 and the collector's edition for 799. We received our review copy a few days ago, and already we've been sucked into the game's amazing world and storyline. Look out for the review sometime next week.  

 

 

 

Gran Turismo 5 may have been delayed yet again, but that doesn't stop us getting excited about some of the awesome cars the game will feature, the fastest of these being the X1 Prototype.

 

The X1 was designed by Adrian Newey, one of the leaders in Formula 1, he previously worked with McLaren and is now at Red Bull racing. When they were designing the car GT5 creator Kazunori Yamauchi encouraged Newey to create a car that goes to the extremes of motorsport.

 

The insane car boasts a g-force inducing top speed of 400 km/h. Red Bull Formula 1 driver, Sebastian Vettel, drove the virtual car around Japan's Suzuka circuit in GT5 and after his first lap had set a new world record.

 

Although the car doesn't really exist, it's great seeing imagination taken to the extreme to create the perfect virtual speed machine. Check out this video below showcasing the X1 Prototype.