When Sony announced the PS Vita earlier in the year, we also heard that their new handheld gaming console would go on sale before the end of 2011, now it looks like it will only be Japan that will get the PS Vita before the end of the year.

Sony’s executive vice president, Kazuo Hirai has announced that the Sony PS Vita will go on sale in Japan by the end of the year but it wont go on sale in the UK, US and Europe until 2012.

There are no details as yet on when exactly in 2012 the PS Vita console will hit the US, UK and Europe, and the news will come as a disappointment to many gamers who were expecting to ... Read more »

Before you get too excited the image below is a fan-made amalgam using pre-order graphics and does not represent official game artwork for the new games skins. As Rocksteady/Warner Bros have still not yet released any official images of the skins included within their new Batman: Arkham City game.

However to date there are expected to be six skins available within the game but this could increase as the game gets closer to launch.

The skins are available to gamers who pre-order the new Batman : Arkham City from certain retailers. For example if you like the Batman animated series skin you will need to purchase the Batman: Arkham City from MightyApe.

< ... Read more »

Its being reported that the Xbox Live service is currently experiencing intermittent service outages, so if you have been kicked from Halo Reach or Black Ops don’t work its not your kit and your not alone.

The outages started to be report last night and have been shown on Microsoft’s status service board. The issues experienced seem to include creating, managing, and recovering accounts, and creating, maintaining, or joining matches in Halo Reach or Black Ops.

You can check on the current status of the Xbox Live service by visiting the support site ... Read more »

If you are looking forward to the launch of the new Diablo III even after the announcements released this week by Blizzard regarding no mods, the in-game real-money auction house and the need for an always on Internet connection to play the DRM protected single player game.

You might like the video after the jump showing a little gameplay footage from the beta testing of Diablo III.

The new preview which has been released to a select number of gaming publishers today by Blizzard features the different playable character classes including the classic Barbarian followed by ... Read more »

ooks like the whole PSN hacking incident has been a transformative experience for Sony, slowly drawing out its more charitable side. Either that, or it’s found a fairly cheap way of banging out the dents in its PR, but for whatever reason one grateful indie developer is reaping the benefits.

"On the basis that you can’t put the cat back in the bag, I can confirm that Sony was generous enough to loan us some kit, and that’s one of the many reasons why I big them up every opportunity I get,” according to managing director Paul Johnson.

"They really do seem to have gotten behind smaller developers, based on my own experience and from talking with other small devs, and I think they should be saluted for it,” he went on. Proof, if it was ... Read more »

If you are looking forward to the launch of Diablo 3 you might be interested to know that it  has been unveiled the new game will come with a real money in-game auction house where players can trade for in-game items.

The in-game auction houses will allow players to sell items from player to player, one will use in game gold as its currency and the other will use real money. Players will be able to list their items up for sale in each of the game’s various regions around the world, and other players will then be able to spend real money to acquire the in-game goods, with Blizzard taking a fixed fee for the transaction.

The transaction fees haven’t been revealed as yet but Blizzard says they will be ... Read more »

We know that Sony will release their latest handheld gaming console before Christmas, unfortunately Sony hasn’t announced an exact launch date, but now it looks like it may launch on the 28th of October, the last date we heard was the 4th of November.

The guys over at IGN have received a copy of an avert from Blockbuster here in the UK which shows a launch date of the 28th of October although it does say to be confirmed on the advert.

The Sony PS Vita features a 5 inch multi-touch OLED display, on the back of the Vita there is also a multi-touch pad which can be used for controlling games along with the two analog sticks on the front of the console.

When it goes on sale there will be a WiFi only model and a WiFi and 3G model, ... Read more »

The recently announced Nintendo 3DS price cut almost made us wish there were enough games out for the thing to make us care about the news. Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, however, has gotten around that problem by footing some of the bill, as well as the responsibility for the handheld’s less than stellar sales himself. Colour us intrigued.

Putting aside for a moment the fact that a major executive in an industry frequently lambasted as immature is showing more accountability and integrity in this one move than the entire population of Wall Street combined, there’s just something badass about honorably standing by your decisions and falling on your sword, even if that sword just happens to be a slightly smaller pile o ... Read more »