Entertainment Electronics Blog

Sony revealed a way to extend your PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable’s warranty earlier this year with the PlayStation Protection Plan. You can now easily purchase the plan for your PS3 through the PlayStation Store, and PlayStation Plus members can even receive a discount.

The plan comes in one- or two-year varities costing $44.99 and $59.99, respectively. Plus members will be able to get the two-year plan at a 25% discount, meaning you’ll pay $44.99, effectively giving you two years for the price of one. Among the features a protection plan provides are free shipping on repairs and no fee for qualified claims.

You can’t apply the plan to any older PS3 systems, so that precious backwards-compatible 60GB unit is almost certainly not eligible. Only systems that are still within their original one-year warranty can have a PlayStation Protection Plan applied to them.

EA’s John Shappert came onstage at Sony’s E3 press briefing today to show off a new trailer for Medal of Honor and to announce a PlayStation 3-exclusive version of the game.

The PS3 limited edition of Medal of Honor will include a revamped version of the PS2’s Medal of Honor: Frontline. Best of all, it comes at no extra charge over the standard release of the game.

Medal of Honor is set to hit store shelves on October 12.

Today’s E3 Sony press conference made good on yesterday’s promise of more information on Dead Space 2. After finishing yesterday’s cliffhanger ending (with another cliffhanger), Sony announced that the PlayStation 3 would be getting an exclusive Limited Edition. The package will include the game itself, plus a port of the Wii title Dead Space Extraction with Move support.

The original Dead Space sold slightly better on the Xbox 360, but this kind of exclusive limited edition gave Dante’s Inferno (also from EA) an edge on the sales charts. We might see the same thing happening with Isaac Clarke’s next horror adventure as well.

At E3 today Konami showed the first trailer of its next Silent Hill game, with the working title of Silent Hill 8.

The game is scheduled to launch in 2011 on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and promises to be “a next generation horror game that fans truly deserve,” according to a statement released today by Konami.

The game stars prison inmate Murphy Pendleton, who escapes from a prison transport vehicle and finds himself stranded in Silent Hill. From the glimpses we’ve seen in the trailer, Pendleton will have to deal both with the supernatural horrors of Silent Hill and with the cops, who are on his trail.

We should have more substantial details soon, but for now check out these first screenshots from the trailer, which we should have available on the 1UP later today.

The newly announced publishing deal between Activision and Bungie has significant impact on both companies (and even Microsoft), but one company that hasn’t been mentioned much is Sony. After years of Microsoft exclusivity, this deal finally means we’ll be seeing Bungie games appear on the PlayStation 3.

The company’s press release mentioned “multiple platforms,” which led to speculation of PS3 development. It was confirmed by Sony senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold, via Twitter. “Congrats to Bungie,” he said. “Marrying their creative minds and incredible talent to the power of PS3 will be like giving PS3 fans Halo on steroids.” Of course, no jump to multi-platform would be complete without a little corporate cattiness.

It isn’t terribly surprising given the nature of the news — Activision is a multi-platform publisher, after all. Bungie broke away from Microsoft exclusivity in 2007, and Halo Reach will be the final piece of their deal with the console manufacturer. The press release seems to indicate that Bungie is developing one particular new franchise with Activision, but still has the freedom to make other games with other publishers as they like. If Bungie intends to launch any other new titles, Microsoft or Sony could court them for exclusivity.

THQ has revealed the full roster for UFC Undisputed 2010, slated to be released next month. GameStop has the list, which includes some 100 fighters across multiple weight divisions.
Additions include Marcus Jones, Pat Barry and Luiz Cane. Notably absent are Wanderlei Silva and Randy Couture, the latter signing on with EA’s MMA game. This year’s featured fighter is University of Minnesota and WWE alum Brock Lesnar, who is the current UFC Heavyweight Champion.

The demo set to be released this week will feature light heavyweights Lyoto Machida, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Rashad Evans and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

The full game is due on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP on May 25. Check out the full roster below. “N” denotes new fighters, “P” refers to fighters available in promotional deals and “L” refers to PS3 exclusive legendary fighters.

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION
Mustapha Al-Turk (N)
Andrei Arlovski
Pat Barry (N)
Shane Carwin (N)
Mirko Cro Cop
Junior Dos Santos (N)
Todd Duffee (N)
Gabriel Gonzaga
Antoni Hardonk
Heath Herring
Marcus Jones (P)
Cheick Kongo
Brock Lesnar
Justin McCully
James McSweeney (P)
Frank Mir
Roy Nelson (P)
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Eddie Sanchez
Brendan Schaub (P)
Dan Severn (L)
Kimbo Slice (N)
Stefan Struve (N)
Cain Velasquez
Fabricio Werdum
HEAVYWEIGHT & LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISIONS
Mark Coleman
Brandon Vera
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION
Ryan Bader
Stephan Bonnar
Jason Brilz (N)
Luiz Cane (N)
Steve Cantwell (N)
Rashad Evans
Forrest Griffin
Matt Hamill (N)
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson
Keith Jardine
Jon Jones (N)
Chuck Liddell
Lyoto Machida
Tito Ortiz
Mauricio Rua
Thiago Silva
Krzysztof Soszynski (N)
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT & MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISIONS
Vitor Belfort (N)
Michael Bisping
Rich Franklin
Wilson Gouveia
Dan Henderson
Anderson Silva
MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION
Yoshihiro Akiyama (N)
Ricardo Almeida
Alan Belcher (N)
Patrick Cote (N)
Kendall Grove
Dennis Kang (N)
Chris Leben
Demian Maia
Nate Marquardt
Drew McFedries
Dan Miller (N)
Yushin Okami
Nate Quarry (N)
Chael Sonnen (N)
MIDDLEWEIGHT & WELTERWEIGHT DIVISIONS Martin Kampmann
Mike Swick
WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION
Thiago Alves
Carlos Condit (N)
Marcus Davis
Jon Fitch
Royce Gracie (L)
Dan Hardy (N)
Dustin Hazelett (N)
Matt Hughes
Anthony Johnson
Dong Hyun Kim (N)
Josh Koscheck
Chris Lytle
Karo Parisyan
Amir Sadollah
Georges St-Pierre
Paulo Thiago (N)
Frank Trigg (N)
James Wilks (N)
WELTERWEIGHT & LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISIONS BJ Penn
Diego Sanchez
Matt Serra
Sean Sherk
LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION
Nate Diaz
Frankie Edgar
Efrain Escudero
Terry Etim (N)
Spencer Fisher
Kenny Florian
Hermes Franca
Tyson Griffin
Clay Guida (N)
Joe Lauzon
Gray Maynard
Cole Miller (N)
Ross Pearson (N)
Kurt Pellegrino (N)
Jens Pulver (L)
Dennis Siver (N)
Joe Stevenson
Caol Uno (N)

It’s not nearly as big in North America as it is in Europe, but gamers on both sides of the pond will soon be able to enjoy MotoGP. Capcom has announced that the motorcycle racers will be available in North America next month.

Users will be able to download all 2010 season content for free, which includes new tracks, team updates and new motorcycles. The content will be available free.

If you’re into motorcycle racing, then it sounds like a treat. If you’re not sure, a demo should be out sometime soon.

MotoGP 09/10 will be out March 16 on Xbox 360 and PS3 in North America, and March 19 in Europe.

Have you downloaded the Battlefield Bad Company 2 demo on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360? If you have, you’re not alone. EA has tweeted that some 3.5 million people have taken the plunge on both platforms.

The demo launched earlier this month, and will end next week. Interest in the demo can potentially be chalked up to Battlefield 1943, which enjoyed considerable success as a downloadable title last year.

If you haven’t tried it out, you have until February 25 to download it and play it for yourself. After that, you’ll have to wait until it arrives on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 2.

Shortly over a year after The Lost and Damned debuted on the Xbox 360, Grand Theft Auto IV’s Episodes from Liberty City will no longer be exclusive to Microsoft’s console. Rockstar just announced plans to bring both The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned to PC and PlayStation 3 this March.

The two episodes were temporarily Xbox 360 exclusives thanks to a little encouragement on Microsoft’s part — $50 million worth, to be precise. That deal appears to have run its course, however, and with all the talk of lower-than-expected sales of the expansions on Xbox 360, it shouldn’t be too surprising to see them turning up on other platforms.

Look for both GTA Episodes on the PlayStation Store, the Games for Windows Live Marketplace, and at retail on March 30.

Sony is teaming up with 7/11 to bring out Slurpees based on the upcoming title, God of War 3. Kotaku reports that the drinks will be heading to 7/11 stores in February, and feature “ferocious blackberries and frosty limes” as the flavor. Blackberries don’t particularly ferocious to us, and this unfortunately beats out our suggested “blood and pained screams of your fallen enemies” flavor. But fans can look forward to more than just a syrup-based frozen drink, since the cups will contain codes that can be cashed in at Slurpee.com for God of War 3 downloadable content.

This is similar to the recent Dr. Pepper partnership with EA for DLC in its games, including Mass Effect 2. Drink manufacturers have made game-branded products before, but we’re betting they’ll see more success with these recent promotions that offer in-game rewards. As a move that encourages more purchasing with the promise of small, free in-game trinkets, it’s a win-win for soft drink companies and publishers alike.