Today, Sony Computer Entertainment exec Kaz Hirai announced "Life with PlayStation" for the PS3. During the presentation, the "Life" was demoed for the audience for the first time — the service shows the Earth, and users can access current news and weather for locations around the world. It's possible to even pull up the full article from the headline. Users can also set background music while looking at the Earth, checking the weather and the world news. Click through pics below to see it in action.

To: Totilo
From: Ashcraft
RE: The Jimmy Olsen Question

Ha! Nice comic.

So, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless (Hi Jim!) has passed along some promotional clips he made for a TV I have never seen. (Think the show is called The Middleman from the writer-producer who did Lost — so it's a real show and everything.) Anyway! The clips are pretty darn good, I think, and my nameless friend Jim would really like to know what you, Average Kotaku Reader Person, thinks of them. Hit the jump for a couple of the clips. And be gentle! Happily ban anyone who dips into douchebagsville.

What you missed last night
Metal gear Solid 4 loses top sales spot
Just How Many PLAYSTATION Network Registrants Are There?
How Sony Plans For 2008 Financial Profit
First Shots Of PS3 Video Download Service, Due In "Summer 2008"
Blizzard Splashwatch Day Four - Lost Edition
Another Akihabara Stabbing Today
Otomedius Gorgeous Trailer Loaded With Shooting, Boobs
Connecticut Senator Searching For "Rape Scene" In GTA IV
Denis Dyack Tells Too Human Trolls "Put Up Or Shut Up"

BioShock made team leader Ken Levine famous. While he renegotiates his contract with Take-Two for more money and power, there have been rumours that Levine isn't exactly Mr. Popular. More like Mr. Unpopular! Apparently, the BioShock team did not enjoy working with him. Not so says lead BioShock programmer Chris Kline:

The Cliffster is making Gears of War 2, and the dude's totally hoping he can improve. Make a better game, you know. And in doing so, The 'ster has things he's looking at, things he wants to avoid. And one of those things is Metal Gear Solid. Says The Cliffster:

We wanted a blockbuster pace [in Gears of War 1], and in doing so, we lost the story a bit. So that's one of the lessons we learned. This time round there's more repetition. Games aren't movies and aren't consumed in a single sitting. So secondary characters will remind you about stuff, which is re-established in plot cues. Metal Gear Solid is our example of the game we're not doing. Passive entertainment is on its way out — you need to hook up with this web 2.0 stuff.

The ironic thing? Kojima Productions was influenced by Gears of War's controls for MGS4.
Gears of War 2 Multiplayer Hands-On [IGN via ripten]

Goodness gracious me. Never would have thought the internet would go and make a pastime out of this, but now that it has, what else can we do but run with it? Because, as rubbish as the idea of a bunch of Sims re-enacting hip-hop and R&B videos sounds, it's really not. It's great. There's nine more at the link below, but be warned, a lot of them aren't exactly work/child-friendly.

The Ultimate Argument Settler: The 10 Best Fan Made Hip Hop Videos With Sims Of All Time [Videogum, via Boing-Boing]

Back when we posted the Spore Creature Creator created Xbox 360 controller, that was a pretty big deal! Well, if only because everyone was too busy making Penis Monsters. Seems like folks have moved onto other creative endeavours — like the Wii-mote, for example. A quick search turns up twenty or so Wii-mote monsters, all of varying skill level.

Hit the jump for a look at more.

Eternal Sonata's due on the PS3 (at least in Japan) in September 2008. It was released on the 360 (at least in Japan) in June 2007. Time enough for tri-Crescendo to make the wait a little more worthwhile for PS3 owners, yes? Yes. Plenty of time. The PS3 version will feature two new playable characters, new dungeons, new quests, multiple endings (which depend on your in-game actions), new costumes, some new musical numbers and even new 2D character illustrations. That's a lot of stuff! Maybe even enough to convince some die-hard fans to buy the thing twice. All those upgrades should feature in the Western versions as well, which will be out...sometime in the future.

New Details on Eternal Sonata's PS3 Port [Eternal Sonata]

Do you like numbers? Sony Computer Entertainment honcho Kaz Hirai loves numbers. In today's strategy planning meeting, Hirai pointed out that the PSP has currently sold over 37 million units. That's a lot! What's more (or less, actually), the PLAYSTATION 3 has shifted over 12 million units since launch. Grand total: Over 49 million. We're fairly certain that worldwide sales of both the PS3 and the PSP are over 50 million. That, and "Total Over 49 Million Units" doesn't sound as nearly nice as "Total Over 50 Million Units". So there you go.

Sony Group's Mid-Term Corporate Strategy Meeting [Sony]

In today's Sony Computer Entertainment strategy meeting, Kaz Hirai also announced thrilling info about the PLAYSTATION Network. Factoids include:

Cumulative Number of Registrants:
Over 9.8 million accounts worldwide

Distributed Data Volume:
Approx. 86 peta bytes
(equivalent to 17 million single layer DVDs)

Simply fascinating. But 17 million single layer DVDs? How many Blu-ray Discs is that exactly? More data after the jump.

Registrants: approx. 9.8 million
Registration rate: 45 percent
Total downloads: 170 million
Data volume: 86 peta bytes
Data Volume in Single layer DVD: 17 million units
as of 2008/6/24

Sony Group's Mid-Term Corporate Strategy Meeting [Sony]

Sony hasn't given up on making money. No way, no how. This financial year it even has a plan for achieving profitability. Phew! Kaz Hirai explained all at Sony's corporate strategy meeting today, laying out the game plan:

• Accelerating cost down efforts
» Chip shrink
» Reducing the number of components

• Strengthening the management
» Organisational Review
» Further reductions in SGA [Eds Note: Sales, General and Administration]

• Introducing more new and exciting titles

Sounds like there will be some belt-tightening over at Sony Computer Entertainment. Hit the jump for the rest of the plan:

• Enriching non-game content and services
• Enhancing PlayStation Network
• Expanding the market by further increasing the hardware installed base

Achieve Profitability in FY08

Sony Group's Mid-Term Corporate Strategy Meeting [Sony]

Sony held a little mid-term corporate strategy meeting today in Japan. On the menu? All kinds of Sony stuff, but of particular interest to us, all kinds of PlayStation-related stuff. First up? These shots of the PS3's upcoming video download service, which formed part of a presentation by Kaz Hirai. As you can see, it's largely identical to the current PlayStation Store interface, though it's nice seeing the whole thing move out of the "will be here sometime" stage and into what's surely the "will be here soon" stage. But how soon?

In May, Sony Europe boss David Reeves said the PS3 has now outsold the 360 in Europe. He said the PS3 had sold over five million units since launching in March 2007. And Microsoft Europe's David Gosen says he's lying. Speaking with MCV, Gosen says that the 360 has sold "well over" five million units in Europe, and goes on to boast "We are incredibly well positioned - our installed base in Europe is well over five million and contrary to what's been reported we are at least, if not more than, three quarters of a million ahead of PS3". One of these men is telling the truth. The other is not. And there's only one way to settle this. Like men. A challenge, a glove to the face then pistols at dawn.

360 cruises past 5 million in Europe [MCV]

Assassin's Creed had a lot of hype. Assassin's Creed 2 will have more. Just listen to Ubisoft US boss Laurent Detoc go on about the inevitable sequel:

We just did Assassin's and are sitting on top of the world, but we have to come back to reality very quickly because you're only as good as your last product... Don't drink the Kool-Aid too much; we're going have to defend our position... When we bring it [Assassin's Creed] back, there will be more anticipation for it.

Not only hype, but also look forward to Ubisoft explain how the game play is no longer repetitive and dull. We eagerly anticipate that.

Europe's Top Gamer [Forbes via Eurogamer] [Pic]

From the same guys who brought you the awful "2010" Wii comes a conceptual pipe-dream a little more...sensible. This unnamed Microsoft product takes a 360, shrinks it to handheld size, adds a Zune to it, smooshes their interfaces together then throws a phone in as well. Just for good measure. Looks nice, looks slim, but whoever thought it'd be a good idea to bring the 360's despicable d-pad along for the ride needs a short, sharp slap to the teeth.

Portable XBox 360/Zune Phone Fantasy is Exactly What Microsoft Should Make [Gizmodo]

Great, now you folks have me wide awake at 3 in the morning my time, hunting for clues like an over-the-hill Encyclopedia Brown. The Blizzard splash page has updated once again, revealing what certainly look like a pair of glowing eyes peering through the broken ice. Is it Diablo? Arthas? Or is it Hurley? The reason I ask is because the latest secret image has appeared in the CSS of the page, bearing the number 16. That makes the sequence so far 4, 15, 23, 16. Fans of the television show Lost know those numbers, along with the numbers 8 and 42, as the numbers that keep popping up throughout the show on lottery tickets, prescription bottles, etc. Will the next two numbers follow suit, or is Blizzard throwing us another curve? If it is the Lost numbers, what does it mean?

And where did those Vikings get off to? I cannot seem to find them anywhere?

You may remember the Street Fighter movie (the bad one, not the good one), but only those with longer, sharper memories will remember that the film had a game tie-in. Yes. Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. It was worse than the movie. But that doesn't mean after all these years nothing good can come of it! Alan Noon - who posted a tonne of info on the game last year - has also posted a ton of old photos he took during the title's development. They're...magnificent. I've posted a few below, but really, to get the full effect you'll need to head over to his site and check out the lot of them (they're from 2007, yeah, but stuff like this is like a fine wine).

Follow up: Street Fighter The Movie [Alan Noon, via Game|Life]

Just hours ago, a man stabbed a police officer in Akihabara during a random bag check. This comes in the wake of the tragedy earlier this month when Tomohiro Kato (pictured) drove through Akihabara in a truck and proceeded to stab 18 pedestrians with a knife, killing 7. Today's incident happened at 1:30pm Japan Time, and the individual that attacked the officer is being detained and questioned. The officer sustained a slight injury to the hand as the knife was apparently small.

Tokyo's game/anime/manga haven Akihabara certainly doesn't seem as safe as it once appeared...

秋葉原で男が警察官に切りつける [Yahoo Japan via Canned Dogs]

According to Japanese news site IT Media, Metal Gear Solid 4 has been knocked down to number two by PSP game Super Robot Taisen A Portable. During its first week, MGS4 sold 476,334 copies — so says Enterbrain sales data. In its second week (June 16th to June 22nd), IT Media states the game's sales dropped to 68,000 copies. Still, an impressive number, but not impressive enough to overtake Super Robot Taisen A Portable, which went on sale June 19th. Good news: MGS4's sales have now topped 500,000 copies in Japan. That's way better than a punch in the nards.

僕らの時代のスーパーロボットが登場 [IT Media]

Metal Gear Solid 4 remains at the top for the second week in Britain, though a quick glance over Snake's ageing shoulders will see that Britain's love for Mario & Sonic has been replaced by a love for Lego & Indiana Jones. And it's a love that knows no boundaries, as three versions of the game hit the top ten (Wii, DS, PS2), while the other two (360, PS3) still manage to make the top 20. Yes, I said the top 20, which brings us to the part where I tell you about a change in the way we'll be posting the British sales charts.

I've always posted the top ten sellers from the previous week. Time for a change. So to open things up a bit, spice things up a bit, from here on, I'll be posting the entire top 40, which should give you all a better idea of the buying habits of the British public. Enjoy.

Far Cry 2, for all its promise of open-world gaming, tree-destroying and fire-starting, still seems to be flying under a lot of people's radars. Maybe watching this twenty-minute gameplay demonstration - captured at the Dreamhack LAN show in Sweden - will get you all excited. Certainly nice seeing a presentation of the game that's warts-n-all, gives you an idea of what it'll be like to actually play it, not watch a marketing guy play through it on a trailer.

[via Big Download]

Can't say I've ever used the Inside Xbox section on the 360 myself, but hey, maybe you do. Then again, maybe you don't, and nobody does, which is why Microsoft have announced that they've signed a deal with IGN to bring the site's IGN Strategise segments to Xbox Live. Or, more specifically, that they're bringing the site's IGN Strategise segments to Xbox Live, and they'll be hosted by Jessica Chobot. Neat way to get the IGN brand on Xbox Live without worrying about editorial concerns, that (Strategise being a video hints and tips section).

IGN Strategise Now On Inside Xbox/Xbox Live [IGN]

While the Wii has launched in many, many countries, it hasn't launched everywhere. Taiwan, for instance, it hasn't launched in Taiwan. Well, guess what! It is. And better yet, soon. That's right, next month (July 12th to be exact), the Wii is launching in Taiwan. So, if you live in Taiwan, feel free to buy it if you like. If not, don't.

Wii Launching In Taiwan [Nintendo via Go Nintendo]

Those leaked shots of the PS3's upcoming trophy system? Probably just be the start of a wholesale push by Sony to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft in the online space. A "senior PS3 development source" has told VG247 that "there is Live-like stuff coming to PS3, yes. It's going into titles in the works now". Sounds like more than just trophies to me, and if anything, lends a little more credibility to those rumoured 2.40 features from last night, which looked like they were taking "Live-like stuff" like organising and communicating with your friends a lot more seriously than they have up to now on the PSN.

Source: "There is Live-like stuff coming to PS3″ [VG247]

Courtesy of This Is Game, here's two clips showing a bunch of people demoing the multiplayer aspects of Gears 2, taken at what looks like a Korean press event for the game. New moves, new maps, new kills, it's all here. Being a demo, you'll even get some handy dev commentary (from what sounds like Epic's Rod Fergusson) on the reasoning behind some of the new introductions. Second clip's after the jump.

Whoops! Looks like Nintendo of Europe's upcoming summer (and beyond) release schedule doesn't quite line up with Sega's. The publisher tells Eurogamer that some of the products Nintendo was touting simply don't exist. Sonic Unleashed, for example, is not getting a Nintendo DS release, nor is Beijing 2008 on the Wii.

Both products have since been removed from Nintendo's software release list. We hope this wasn't too crushing of a blow for your future Nintendo hardware-based purchases.

SEGA comments on Nintendo date listing [Eurogamer]

There's nothing that will make one feel more confident about one's life choices than combing through the police blotter. As a gamer and roommate myself, the Seattle Post Intelligencer's "Seattle 911" blog — which does the police report harvesting for you — makes me feel like one of the world's finest human beings. In a recent story about a scuffle between a pot head and his live-in gamer buddy, we learn not resolve our differences as these two do.

According to Seattle 911, after one too many disagreeable bong-hitting sessions, the roommate who gets high only on life shattered said bong on the sidewalk. Bong-smasher was met the next day with a wet Xbox that "smelled like urine" and controllers that were partially glued to... something. No arrests were made.

Clearly not news, just one of those daily affirmation type stories that reminds you that you're not a total loser.

Dumb criminal tricks [Seattle 911 - thanks, Ted?]

Did you know? Otomedius Gorgeous is coming to the Xbox 360 this September... in Japan. No word yet on an US/Australian release, but we've dispatched word to Konami and await the carrier pigeon's safe return. Still, if you're in the area sometime after its release or are in possession of Microsoft hardware from the region, perhaps this will interest you. If not, you might simply be interested in "moe" anime gals piloting space ships. At the very least, you'll get a sneak peek at the extra modes contained in the home version.

If you're going to next month's San Diego Comic-Con and think that Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is a fantastic idea, we have good news. Well, Midway has good news, as it has announced a Comic-Con panel dedicated to the fighting game series reboot. "Worlds Collide: The Making of Midway's Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" will go down Friday, July 25th and features MK creator Ed Boon and DC Comics collaborator Jimmy Palmiotti rappin' about the crossover, showing off "never-before-seen gameplay" and unveiling "key characters".

They're also giving away posters! Hopefully, said posters feature Wonder Woman and Sonya Blade for extra poster-kissability. For those who aren't able to make the trek to Comic-Con, perhaps these day old MK vs. DC in-game screenshots will soothe the pain.

Connecticut Senator Gayle Slossberg (D) recently told The New Haven Advocate that the rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV, where you earn "points for rape," is so alarming that she'd like to see a law passed that features better warning labels.

Yeah, of course, there's no rape scene in GTA IV. But Slossberg appears to be pretty convinced she'd see it, if she could only play well enough to reach that point in the game. Or so she said during a Capitol press conference, according to the Advocate.

The article says she'd like "confirmation" that there is no rape scene in the game. I suppose this is another "write your representative" situation where she could use some (polite) information?

Connecticut State Senator Alarmed Over (non-existent) Rape Scene in GTA IV [New Haven Advocate via GamePolitics]