Late Night Consoling

One of the most powerful franchises in gaming will find a new home on the PSP. Rockstar announced that PSP versions of Grand Theft Auto and Midnight Club 3 are on the way to the PSP, to be made available near the US/Europe hardware launch. Rockstar Leeds will be taking the lead (harr) on the development of the two games. The only detail available about GTA PSP is that it will be based in Liberty City.

Rockstar Leeds was formerly known as Mobius Entertainment and developed a port of Max Payne for the GBA. "We are working very closely with Rockstar North and Rockstar San Diego to ensure that both Grand Theft Auto and Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition remain faithful to the initial vision of these respective franchises," said president of Rockstar Leeds, Gordon Hall.

Nintendo gave hard dates and left others up in the air in their latest update to their release calendar. On the DS side, WarioWare Touched! will be available February 14 and Pokemon Dash on March 14. Star Fox: Assault is also pegged on February 14. March 21 will see the release of WarioWare Twisted (GBA) and Mario Party Advance (GBA) a week later.

However, Nintendo was pretty vague on its higher profile titles. No information was given regarding the releases of the new Legend of Zelda for GameCube, Metroid Prime: Hunters (NDS), and DS versions of Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, and Advance Wars. See the entire lineup here.

EuroGamer has been keeping their eyes and ears open and all signs are pointing to an exclusive release of a 24 game to the PS2. Supposedly the game is in develop by Sony's Cambridge Studio, who in the past developed Medieval, Primal, and Ghost Hunter. No concrete details are available, but the game should be ready for the holiday season later this year.

Namco plans to port the original PSone Tekken game to the PS2 and will bundle it with the upcoming Tekken 5. It's not clear if it'll be a remake or a straight port, but it's a nice bonus nonetheless. The game is currently planned for release in the winter of 2005.

1Up chats with Pandemic Studios' Cameron Brown about the development of Mercenaries. GameSpot talks with the executive producer of Untold Legend: Brotherhood of the Blade and a dev on both NBA Street Showdown and Need for Speed Underground Rivals. Finally, they speak with Marc Ecko about his game, Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Oh wait, one more! Product manager associated with Forza Motorsport.