The domain redirects you back to the Official PlayStation web site for the UK (the country selector if you haven’t picked that region.) WHOIS records show it went active on Jan. 19.

MotorStorm’s sequels have not been numbered – Pacific Rift was in 2008, Arctic Edge for the PSP and PS2 was last year – so this tells us nothing about the game. But if there’s a game on the way this would roughly follow the two-year cycle for MotorStorm on the PS3.

I’ve emailed a Sony contact but I don’t expect them to say much.

MotorStorm 3 Domain Name Registered by Sony Europe [The Gaming Liberty, thanks Shane W.]

Before you say anything, yes, we know Metal Gear Solid 4 has been out in select PAL territories for months now. Guess it’s now out in more territories.

For those uninitiated, this MotorStorm takes the festival up to the land of the midnight sun, adding sno-cats and snowmobiles (sigh, snow machines) to the vehicle fleet. There’s an early adopter bonus—buy it in the first 30 days on sale and you get a free Mirage Rapide rally car, plus two customizable skins, via PSN.

Arctic Edge will arrive on the PlayStation 2 later this fall.

MotorStorm Rolls in on PSP Sept. 29 [GameSpot via Evil Avatar]

Kotaku has confirmed with several Target locations that a new 80GB PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits bundle will be available on March 29th, with Motorstorm and Resistance thrown in for free.

Target stores across the country are currently receiving, sitting on, or awaiting stock of a new 80GB PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits Bundle, which comes complete with the reissued budget versions of the original Motorstorm and Resistance. The sku number in question is 207-23-0009, originally revealed over at Joystiq. Several stores we contacted actually had the units in stock, but when they attempted to actually ring them through the register they received a warning that the product could not be sold until March 29th, days over the close of next week’s Game Developers Conference.

Perhaps dashing the hopes of a pre-GDC price cut, the new bundles were priced the same as the standard 80GB PlayStation 3 – $399.99. Of course it’s technically $60 due to the inclusion of two $30 titles, but do you really need those when two superior sequels are already on store shelves?

Kotaku AU Note: We’ve not heard any word that this bundle will be available in Australia.

Image courtesy of Joystiq

Like every online game these days, MotorStorm 2 has a few issues. A few glitches. Well, Sony have let us know that those glitches are to be addressed in a patch due for release soon.

Among the issues to be fixed are:

* Restrictions to the copying of Saved Data have been removed. This will make it possible for Saved Data to be backed up and then restored to the User Account it was created under (whether that’s on the same PLAYSTATION 3 or not).

* Changes to the way the game handles data. These changes will help to prevent Saved Data corruption.

* Visual notification of critical save progress has been added. A ‘MotorStorm Helmet’ icon will be displayed on-screen to warn users that critical data is being saved. This is in addition to the HDD Access light which currently flashes while the game makes a critical save.

* The glitch which enables a player to exploit the Boost system has been removed. The development team are working to identify which times have been achieved using this glitch; Action will be taken to ensure that the Leaderboards become genuinely competitive again.

* Time Attack times and Rank information will update correctly for all players. Any pending Time Attack times will begin to filter through systematically and the online Ranks should display correctly once the update is released.

* Additional fixes and improvements to gameplay. Many thanks for your feedback on these and other issues so far; we are still investigating the other issues that have been brought to our attention.

Interestingly, Sony call it an “update”. Buddy, that ain’t an update, it’s a patch.

MotorStorm Pacific Rift Game Update Just Around the Corner! [PlayStation]

Sony have two in-house racing developers. Evolution Studios, who do MotorStorm, and SCEE Liverpool, who do WipeOut. Seems a bit silly having two teams doing the one genre, doesn’t it? Does to Sony.

In an interview with GI.biz, Sony’s Michael Denny says that, while the two studios currently share the same management, the two will eventually be smooshed together to share the same building. Which, if even if they didn’t officially merge the pair as something like SCEE Vroom Vroom, would result in enough movement of staff between the two that our last, thread-bare link to Psygnosis (as SCEE Liverpool were known as in a former life) would be gone forever.

Sony’s Michael Denny – Part Two [GI.biz]

Oh yeah. And it was created before the dev team had received official hardware specifications from Sony. Being told that they were “the worst [of Sony's first-party developers] in the world” by former Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison probably didn’t help.

“They actually announced the hardware specifications on a slide show presentation,” Hollywood said in a newly published video interview. “We sat and jotted them down… and then they showed us our movie. So it was like, ‘This is what the PlayStation 3 can do, and this is what you’re gonna get on it.’ And we sat there trying to do the math in our head, going ‘Can we really do this stuff that we’re doing now?’”

“Nobody denied it. Nobody said it wasn’t in-game,” Kershaw said of the PS3 target render.

Fortunately, it sounds like some harsh words from Phil Harrison helped the team tap turn out a pretty damn good racer. Shame it didn’t quite look like that first glimpse…

“We showed MotorStorm to the board of Sony in November 2005. So basically, the infamous E3 video had been out, so there’s all these expectations about the rendering prowess that we were going to expose… and we showed them a lot of boxes,” Hollywood explained. “At the end of the show, Phil Harrison took us to one side and said, ‘You guys are the worst in the world….’ At that point we went, ‘Right, we’ll show you.’”

Kershaw further details the team’s perspective on the controversial E3 2005 trailer: “But it’s this thing that haunts you, that you didn’t match your target render…. Everybody makes such a big fucking deal of it. Who gives a shit? That’s how we make games. If people have got a problem with that, tough.”

Nigel Kershaw On How MotorStorm’s Original Target Video “Pissed Us Off a Lot” [1UP]

The game’s director, Nigel Kershaw, tells CVG that the team has new goodies expected to digitally ship via the PlayStation Store “in the coming months,” that “major packs” will hit the new Motorstorm sometime after Christmas. So hurry up and wait.

MotorStorm 2: Weekly DLC planned, some free [CVG]