PSP News

The arrival of Rage and Dark Souls make next week a glorious time for violence, though there'll be Just Dance 3 to provide relaxation when you're sick of bloodshed.

Next week brings The Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection, FIFA Soccer 12, PES 2012, X-Men: Destiny, The Binding of Isaac, A Game of Thrones: Genesis, Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD, and heaps more.

According to listings from the ESRB, Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy Origins are both set to arrive on the PlayStation Network.

North American publisher XSEED Games has announced plans to publish Grand Knights History, the PlayStation Portable title from developer Vanillaware, this winter.

Sony Computer Entertainment worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed the PS Vita is region-free and spoken on the lessons Sony has learned from its mistakes with the PSP.

Next week's new releases include Gears of War 3, Resident Evil 4 HD, F1 2011, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Kirby Mass Attack, RailWorks 3, Worms Ultimate Mayhem, and heaps more.

The PlayStation Network is going down for routine maintenance in North America this morning, from 9am Pacific through to around 11am. Sony expects you'll still be able to log in, but some may have trouble and certain services are offline.

Sony has announced a new PSP Entertainment Pack, which will include Madden 12 and Need for Speed Shift. It's due on August 30 for $159.99.

Miraculously, Sony's original PlayStation Network reality series, The Tester, has been greenlit for a third season. And as usual, Sony has opened a casting call for eager fans to vie for a spot on the show.

2K Sports has announced even more classic player match-ups for this year's NBA title, bringing players like Larry Bird and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar into NBA 2K12.

PS1 classic RPG Breath of Fire IV is coming to the PlayStation Network on August 16, and some downloadable PSN avatars will go up to mark the occasion as well.

Novarama, one of Sony's exclusive studio partners, has commented on an alleged RAM cut for the PlayStaion Vita, claiming that the (still unconfirmed) drop won't have negative impact on the studios' projects.

Would you like to see Level-5 localise Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney, or perhaps Studio Ghibli collaboration Ninokuni (The Another World)? The Japanese developer's asking to gauge interest, so get voting.

Irem, publisher of the R-Type games, is mysteriously removing games from the PlayStation Store. On August 11th, a number of games, including R-Type Command for PSP and the PSone classic R-Types, will be removed from PSN.