As Electronic Arts holds a firm grip on the sports videogame market, it ultimately leaves them with little competition, thus affording EA Sports the freedom of developing titles with no sense of trepidation.

Enter 2K Sports, the videogame industries second major development studio of Sports titles, and the unveiling of a new sporting franchise at last night's Spike TV's videogame award show.

Last night at the Spike TV VGA was a night a glory for videogames with Samuel L. Jackson as the host and body painted females as envelopes. Interesting enough, Don King, the world's most famous boxing promoter showed up with American flags and all to reveal the new 2K Sports title, Don King Presents: Prizefighter.

"In all my years working in professional boxing, I have never seen anything come as close to creating the thrill, the intensity, the courage and the spectacle of the sport," commented King.

"Don King Presents: Prizefighter is more than a game - it is a glimpse at what life is like in and out of the ring for these incredible athletes."

Coming April 2008, Don King Presents: Prizefighter is expected to give EA's Fight Night some tough competition.

PS3 Unreal Tournament IIIComing inDecember

After yesterday's delay of Haze, it looked like the only third-party PlayStation 3 exclusive left on the 2007 release schedule was Namco Bandai's Time Crisis 4. Today, though, owners of Sony's recently discounted console got a welcome surprise: After being all but officially postponed to 2008 last month, the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament III is now confirmed as shipping this year.

"We got news last night that Unreal Tournament III has been approved by SCEA and has been released to North American manufacturing," said Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein in an e-mail to game journalists. Earlier this month, the outspoken executive said that, despite Midway's pessimism, he was "confident" the game would arrive in 2007. Sony also continued to list it as arriving this year in its release schedule.

Rein went on to say that UTIII publisher Midway Games was currently weighing its release strategy for the shooter, which arrived for the PC this week. (Check back later today for a full review.) However, since many in the US have already left for the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the company doesn't have an official release date for the game.

"My guess is that Midway will start shipping the title to North American retailers on Monday, December 10th," said Rein. "It could show up in stores as early as December 11th but more likely toward the middle of that week." Unfortunately, due to "localization-related tasks," Rein doesn't expect the PS3 UTIII to arrive in Europe until early next year.

However, by arriving in North American stores this year, Unreal Tournament III will (barely) fulfill the 2007 console exclusivity promised at the E3 Media & Business Summit in July. However, it remains unclear how long the game will be available solely on PCs and PS3s, as Midway has announced plans to bring it to the Xbox 360 sometime in 2008.

S3 updated, PC-to-PSP store launches

Sony has upgraded the PS3's firmware to version 2.01. The minor update's major feature is increased stability during gameplay and Web surfing. The update also sharpens graphics upscaling for PlayStation 2 games on those PS3s with backward compatibility, and corrects a remote start error that led to some consoles being turned on by accident.

PS3 owners also now have a variety of new options to choose from in the PlayStation Store. Sony has decided to celebrate the US Thanksgiving holiday by releasing two casual games that use the PlayStation Eye camera--Operation Creature Feature and Aquatopia--for $4.99 and $1.99, respectively. The PlayStation store now also offers a $2.99 expansion pack for fl0w, a $9.99 Need for Speed ProStreet Collector's Edition upgrade, and the extensive list of downloadable Rock Band songs revealed last week. In addition to the new content, Sony also temporarily discounted several older downloadable PS3 games on the PlayStation Store. Calling All Cars, fl0w, PixelJunk Racers, and Everyday Shooter have all been reduced to $4.99 through November 29.

Ironically, arguably Sony's biggest news of the day didn't have anything to do with the PS3 at all. This afternoon, the company launched the PlayStation Store for the PC, which will give PlayStation Portable owners who don't own a PS3 access to downloadable games for the first time. The international shop, located at store.playstation.com, offers many of the PlayStation 1-to-PSP ports currently available in the PS3 PlayStation store, such as Twisted Metal 2 and Tekken 2. It also offers several games designed for the PSP (Wipeout Pure, Syphon Filter Combat Ops) demos, game videos, and PSP themes. A full list of titles can be found on the official PlayStation Blog. Although the games bear an à la carte charge, the service itself is free, although it does require a special application to download games to a PC and then transfer them to a PSP.

Super Mario Galaxy moves 500K

As usual, November has been a huge month for game releases. However, not even the flood of new AAA games could keep the long-awaited Super Mario Galaxy from having the single best launch of a Wii game to date. According to the publisher's own figures, the spacefaring adventure sold more than 500,000 copies in the US during its first week on shelves.

Besides touting the sales figures, Nintendo also pointed to a GameRankings.com aggregate review score of 98 for Super Mario Galaxy, with the claim that the score is the best of all time. (GameSpot's own review was also extremely positive.) The information is actually out of date: As of this writing, Galaxy's review average has dropped slightly, putting it a fraction of a percentage point behind The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Skeptical gamers who want to check that claim out for themselves can try out Super Mario Galaxy during Nintendo's Mall Experience, a traveling assortment of Wii and DS kiosks highlighting the latest games for both systems

Rainbow Six Vegas doubles down

At the finale of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas, the titular antiterrorist team foiled the launch of a missile toward the titular desert metropolis before uncovering a traitor in their midst. As a reward, players were greeted with a black screen bearing the words "To Be Continued," which all but confirmed a sequel.

Today, Ubisoft made it official: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is indeed in development at Ubisoft Montreal for release sometime next year. For now, the Francophonic publisher says the game is being readied for "next-gen consoles and PCs." No specific platforms other than the PC were mentioned, but the original Rainbow Six Vegas was released for the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable. (Proposed PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game were canceled.)

Ubisoft was similarly cagey about Rainbow Six Vegas 2's plot, saying only its "intense solo campaign...uses new tactical possibilities in various locations around Sin City." Gameplaywise, the title will offer a range of online multiplayer modes, including adversarial and co-op, which would tie in to the single-player campaign.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2's release will roughly coincide with the 10th anniversary of the author-inspired franchise, which has sold more than 16 million units worldwide.

CVG has the scoop on the major features that the Fall Xbox 360 Dashboard update will bring next month. On December 4, Microsoft plans to release a system update for the Xbox 360 that will let Xbox Live users download original Xbox games for 1,200 Microsoft Points each. Among the initial list of downloadable Xbox games will be Halo, Fable, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Burnout 3.

The other major feature that will debut with this dashboard update will be Films on Demand, an online rental movie service that will let you watch movies on your Xbox 360 in a pay-per-view way instead of buying them. You'll have two weeks to start watching a film you rented and up to 24 hours to finish viewing once you started watching that movie.

Warner Bros. is rumored to be one of the studios that will offer its film catalog on this new service.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/15079/Xbox-360-Fall-Update-to-Bring-Downloadable-Xbox-Games/

I like this alot.

How about you guys?

BioShock PS3 rumors resurface

A rumor that was squashed a few months ago has resurfaced again. Yes, that's right; speculation that Bioshock may be coming to the PlayStation 3 has once again regenerated.

Previous rumors ended when it had been reported that Microsoft made 2K Games an offer they couldn't refuse to keep the game a Xbox 360 exclusive; however, that latest word reveals that it is not the case anymore.

Could Bioshock see the light of day on a PS3 console? Who knows, in today's industry it is very hard to keep a game only on one console, especially if the game is very successful on that one console such as Bioshock. We at PSU cannot confirm anything just yet, so the only thing to do is to just wait and see what the future has in store.

Bioshock is one of the better Xbox 360 games of 2007 and rightfully so. The title is an abstract experience like no other. The environments, color, characters, and even story is so conceptual, and the understanding of the game will completely blow any gamers mind away.

Developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games, fans of the PS3 should definitely welcome in the game if it does indeed come to the PS3 as it would be a great addition to the console.

EU PSN updates: Tekken 5: DR Online and more

With a new week comes a new PlayStation Store update and for all of you who live in Europe, fear not; even though you have yet to receive a Uncharted demo, Sony has not forgotten you.

Along with new expansions for Folklore, Sony has updated the EU PSN Store with Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online and a demo for EA's latest racer, Need for Speed Pro Street.

Here is the full list of updates:

* Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online (£14.99)
* Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online Upgrade (£3.49)
* Cool Boarders PS1 game (£3.49)
* Need for Speed Pro Street demo (free)
* Folklore "Bottom of the sea" pack (£1.49)
* Motorstorm "Devil's Weekend" pack (£3.99)
* Uncharted "Animation Overview" trailer (free)
* PSP Shapes Your World trailer (free)

Don't forget too that there is a new shooter out, Call of Duty 4. If you pick this up it should hold you over till Uncharted releases later this month.

finally something great in sales for sony.

i think i am gonna give up on this how many thime they wanna delay it.

i really can't wait to play this game.