Tracks available on Xbox 360 (Sept. 8th) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (Sept. 10th):

• Freezepop – “Get Ready 2 Rokk” *
• Freezepop – “Less Talk More Rokk” *
• Freezepop – “Science Genius Girl” *
• Jonathan Coulton – “Re: Your Brains” *
• MC Frontalot – “Origin of Species” *
• Paul & Storm – “Opening Band” *
• 3 Doors Down – “Kryptonite”
• AFI – “Miss Murder”
• Audioslave – “Gasoline”
• Jackson 5 – “ABC”

image © Bryan Stratton

• Avenged Sevenfold – “Bat Country”
• The Jam – “A Town Called Malice”
• The Jam – “Going Underground”
• Oasis – “Supersonic” (Live)
• Rage Against the Machine – “Guerilla Radio”
• Talking Heads – “And She Was”
• Talking Heads – “Crosseyed & Painless”
• Talking Heads – “Girlfriend is Better”
• Talking Heads – “Once in a Lifetime”
• Talking Heads – “Take Me to the River”

image © Bryan Stratton

image © Engadget

This, of course, is in response to the recently-released PS3 Slim, the skinny, $300 version of Sony’s Blu-Ray player. Rumor has it that it also plays games. I’m afraid Sony has an uphill climb ahead of them if they truly want to compete with the 360, but at least they’ve now got a decent ad campaign, instead of something designed to confuse and horrify you.

image © Engadget

The Nintendo Wii has remained at $249 since its launch, and as of April of this year, Nintendo was still denying that any price cuts were imminent. But with the X360 Pro dropping to the Wii’s price point and the full-featured PS3 Slim and X360 SKUs moving into the Wii’s neighborhood, it’s hard to believe that we won’t see a $50 price cut before the holiday season begins in earnest.

So there you go, kids. If you set your mind to it, you can accomplish anything that you want in life—provided that you’re phenomenally wealthy, in peak physical condition and one of the smartest people on the planet.

image © GameSpot

There is “no requirement for content approval” apparently.

Games will however go through a shortened quality assurance process to make sure they work properly on the various PSP hardware.

Significantly, this process is labelled as being “transparent, trackable and predictable”, with developers setting their own release dates.

This suggests Sony has learnt from Apple’s approval process for the App Store, which is regarded as being neither transparent, trackable or predictable.

image © casualgaming.biz

I find the “no requirement for content approval” extremely dubious. Is Sony really going to let Mini developers churn out porn apps for its handheld console and sell them through the PlayStation Store?

Also, isn’t this the same company that routinely releases new PSP firmware to shut down the homebrew community and has devised some of the most destructive copy protection malware in history? Are we really supposed to believe that they’re suddenly a friend of the little developer?

Plus, the install bases for the PSP and the iPhone/iPod Touch are just about dead even, despite the fact that the iPhone has been on the market for a significantly smaller time frame. If Sony really wants to start poaching disgruntled iPhone app developers, they’d better hope that the imminent release of the PSP Go exceeds all expectations, and that recent accounts of Apple reforming its approval process are bunk.

Tracks available on Xbox 360 (Aug. 25) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (Aug. 27):

• Billy Idol – “Mony Mony”
• Billy Idol – “Rebel Yell”
• Fleetwood Mac – “Don’t Stop”
• Fleetwood Mac – “World Turning”
• Jet – “She’s a Genius”
• Tom Petty – “I Won’t Back Down”
• Tom Petty – “Runnin’ Down a Dream”

image © Bryan Stratton