Just yesterday, Steven reported that Sony's PlayStation Home service may well be available "before the end of the year". Apparently, a little over 24 hours can make all the difference in these things, with the rumour blown out of the water in a slightly different way than we'd expected.

News tonight has landed on my desk that the PlayStation Home Beta will be available for all PS3 users with PlayStation Network connectivity - starting December 11th, 2008. The information came out of the UK, so I wouldn't expect this one until tomorrow evening, or even Friday morning.

The Holiday flood begins this Thursday with the release of an ungodly amount of games, including Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Crysis Warhead and Wipeout HD, and doesn’t stop until the week before Christmas. To save you all a bit of time, I like to run through the release list at the start of a given quarter, and make sweeping generalisations as to the quality of upcoming games.

Last week’s Warp Pipe covered the games of October, so this week we’re looking at November’s big hitters, including Gears of War 2, Left 4 Dead and Mirror’s Edge.

2008 has been a little different from the standard industry year, in that we’ve seen a lot of major titles released outside of the holiday shopping season. Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots were all released in the first half of the year. One would think that that might make for a less than stellar holiday line up, but the game publishers of the world (bar Nintendo) are inclined to prove otherwise.

Over the next two weeks (due to the sheer number of releases), The Warp Pipe will be boldly predicting the quality of new games in the next quarter.

The Sony press conference held earlier this week at E3, while largely full of sales data and statistics did include a few interesting points. A new 80GB PlayStation 3 was confirmed, along with a new Platinum games collection, and some major first-party titles were given release dates.

...all that's well and good, until you realise that they were all confirmed for the US gamers, with no announcements for other areas.

It's okay though, a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe event was held later in the week, where a bunch of PAL representatives were told the good news.

One thing I've found particularly surprising over the last week was the rate at which my interest in Grand Theft Auto IV rapidly declined. I beat the game on Sunday night, yet haven't felt compelled to turn it back on since, which is strange, given how much I had enjoyed it. It's really lacking that level of supplementary content we saw in Vice City and San Andreas; much more effort went into the story, and the game is better for it, but I'd have liked more to do after the narrative was wrapped up.

This week's column is the final part of our Grievances series, focusing on Sony. We'll also take a look at the godawful Survivor game from late last decade, and give Guinness World Records' 2008 Gamers Edition the review treatment.

Welcome to another week of Now Playing - your weekly round up of new trailers for the latest games that have caught our eye. It's going to be hard to top last week's monster of blockbusters. But let's see whats in stall for this week.

We start with a good ol' zombie classic, followed by some little big things and a wrap up of some of today's sporting highlights in the basketball and the dirt racing. A new PvP MMORPG is set to be Mortal and we check out an aggressive new RTS.

There's been teasers and sneaky hints tucked around the place all suggesting the same thing, but it's now been confirmed - Motorstorm 2 will be hitting PS3s all over the place by the end of the year - and we've got the first video to show off!

The sequel leaves the mountainous desert of the anything-goes racing original, and heads to a lush Pacific island covered with dense jungle, towering peaks, thick swamps and steaming volcanoes. Take all the vehicles you love from the first title and rampage through and over tangled undergrowth, thick mud, fast-flowing rivers and bubbling pools of lava. Choose from ATVs, buggies, race trucks, mudpluggers, Big Rigs, rally cars and motorbikes... and for the first time ever, joining the cast is the new monster truck class.

The 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards have just been held - and, suprise surprise, Call of Duty 4, BioShock and the contents of The Orange Box (Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal) all won big in Las Vegas.

Two major industry icons were also honoured by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences in recognition of the amazing contribution they've had on the industry: Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment is the eleventh member of the AIAS Hall of Fame, while Ken Kutaragi, former CEO and president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc was presented with the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award.

What will you remember 2007 for, in terms of gaming?

We asked some of the game admins and network staff to find out their thoughts, but I'll give you a quick recap first:
Australia got the PS3 in a bit of an anti-climactic launch, bringing with it a bit of resistance, as well as a stormy racer. We got a new Command & Conquer, another episode of Half-Life 2, a final Halo and didn't get the latest Grand Theft Auto. The world was thrown into "what-if?" with a little game from Massive, a motley crew of cartoons finally arrived, making up Team Fortress 2, and the Call of Duty was heard on a more modern battlefield. Ingame physics were turned on their head and flipped inside-out with Valve's puzzling Portal, our favourite four-fingered family arrived on almost every console known to man, first-person shooters got genetically-engineered, and the world was overrun by pocket monsters, both handheld and motion-sensitive. It's also been a big year for a little Italian plumber, who not only took over the soccer field, he also had a party or two and even headed into space, as well as turning somewhat more two-dimensional. Blizzard released their first MMO expansion, announced their second, revealed that 9 million people played World of Warcraft, took the covers off of StarCraft II, and still managed to keep tight-lipped on their new project.

The Games Network has done a whole bunch of work behind the scenes, making things a lot nicer and easier to work with, even if it looks pretty much the same. One of the major changes would be the upgrade to our file mirror, which now boasts 10 terabytes of space, so there's plenty of room for games, demos, screenshots, videos and patches. We also upgraded our staff, getting a whole new person to work for us, as well as a handful of new newsbots to bring you updates and good stories.

As a team, we tended to stay pretty close to home this year (other than sending representatives to eGames in Melbourne, GO3 in Perth, and BlizzCon in LA!), but we took the time to recognise the local guys with a big meetup for our Adelaide members, volunteers and gamers on the Australia Day long weekend last year. We had a whole pub to ourselves!

Overall, we must be doing something right, as every month, it seems we get bigger and bigger, with more visits, downloads and members! ...and, of course, you guys are the most important thing. Thanks for all your support, whether you're a regular visitor, someone who pops in from time to time, or just someone who keeps an eye out for interesting files in our library.

Bring on 2008 - but first, read on to find out what the admins, staff and volunteers have to say about 2007!

On the very first day of the Tokyo Game Show in the early morning, Kazuo Hirai President and Chief Operating Officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, announced that Dual Shock 3 controllers will be coming to the market for Playstation 3. Also there will be a new PSP feature to turn off and on the PS3.

While on the topic of PS3-related updates, I've received word that MotorStorm will be getting an upgrade this week. The included improvements are preparing the game for two new vehicle packs set to land later this month, and also for the the MotorStorm Revenge Weekend pack, which you'll be able to buy very soon.

I like it when console games get updates. It shows that they're not being forgotten - and that's kinda cool.

We are still a nation of party-goers, with the eighth celebration thrown by a fat little plumber topping the charts again this week. It's good to see the Wii back up in the top section, long may she reign!

In other news, the PC chart's a bit surprising, with an attack from a futuristic battlefield coming right up behind a couple of warring worlds. Xbox 360 is still wielding chainsaws and fending off locusts, a bunch of cars is storming around the PS3, DS is still overrun by pocket monsters, and the PS2 has stopped singing and now thinks it's an 80s hero.

...and to round out the trilogy of console news this morning - it has come to my attention that the PS3 "Starter Pack" deal, only launched in Australia at the start of the month, will be removed by the start of next month.

The deal, which included a 60GB PS3, two controllers and a copy of both MotorStorm and Resistance for the same price as the standalone console, is due to end on August 31st.

Further to last week's announcement about the PS3 Starter Pack, it's now been dated for an Australian release. Just one day later than their original timeframe, you can pick up a 60GB PS3, two Sixaxis controllers, and a copy each of Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm, from August 2nd.

It'll still set you back $999.95 (recommended), and it's no bonus 20GB, but eh - it's a start.

Those of you hanging out for the Australian version of the PS3 price drop are in for a disappointment, with Sony Europe CEO David Reeves confirming today that the cheaper price is only coming to North Americans, and that the console would not be getting any pricing readjustments in Europe or Australia.

Further to that - we're not getting the 80GB version of the console, either.

Sony have confirmed what was rumoured on the internet last week. That there will be a price drop for the PS3 in North American markets tomorrow. Lucky for the yanks. Of course, there is no word on a price drop in Australia, chances are that we will be the last ones to get it. The Americans will also be getting a bonus, the 80gig version of the PS3 is going to be released in the states as well. Previously this version was only available in Korea.

Ohnoes!
The game charts this week have been overrun by turtles! Turtles and the Nintendo DS. Yes. You heard me. Three of the best selling games in Australia last week were for the DS. I'm not sure if that's one of the signs of the impending apocalypse, but it's a Big Deal, I believe.

Also, nice work there Guitar Hero II, looks like the X360 fans think you're a bit of all right.

It's Friday evening, I should be relaxing. Instead, I'm reading over a bunch of stats firmly concentrating on that little Playstation 3 doohickey. You might remember it was launched a couple of weeks ago... and we've just received word that the platform (and associated peripherals, games and accessories) has generated more than $33 million in sales, according to GfK, the third-party analyst group that keeps track of these things.

It's been a long wait but we're less than a month away, 27 days to be exact, for the release of Sony's latest attempt at grabbing a slice of the local entertainment pie with Sony last Thursday officially unveiling the Playstation 3 in front of a mixed crowd of media and business partners.

Extolling the virtues of the console in front of a large audience, local chief of Sony Computer Entertainment Michael Ephraim ran through Sony's established strengths and what the new console will mean to the gaming sector in general, particularly it's inherit potential as an all-purpose multimedia hub within the home environment, as well as lightly covering some of the console's more technical features.