Phil Harrison, the man behind SCE’s Worldwide Studios, in an interview with Spiegel Online remarked that the idea of Sony copying Nintendo’s Wii controller is “understandable,” but “a little stupid.” Apparently, both companies were working on similar technology for a long time, and now that such technology is possible within a price affordable by consumers, Sony went on to unveil the motion-sensing portion of PS3’s controller.

In the same interview, Harrison went on to say that users will adopt the PS3 as their “primary entertainment device” and that they’ll be doing their “gaming, movie watching, web browsing” and other “computer entertainment functions” through the console that will ship with a HDD and Linux preinstalled. “PlayStation 3 is a computer. We don’t need the PC.”

First up, the patches:

• Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge v1.01 on 3D Gamers
  
• Gary Grigsby’s World At War v1.201 on Matrix Games
  
• Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II v1.04 on EA FTP

• Sensible Soccer on 3D Downloads, 3D Gamers, Boomtown, Eurogamer, FileFront, FileNuts, Gameguru Mania, Gamer’s Hell, VGPRO and Worthplaying

These were shipped:

• DropTeam (PC)
  
• Half-Life 2: Episode One (PC)
  
• STACKED with Daniel Negreanu (PC, PS2, Xbox)

• Alliance: Future Combat (June 12)

Ignition Entertainment has announced that it plans to bring King of Fighters: NeoWave for the PS2 to Europe this Summer.

The King of Fighters NEOWAVE is the first ever King of Fighters game SNK has developed for the arcade that hasn’t been based on NEOGEO technology. As well as an all-new fighting system that provides fighting styles for players of all skill levels, gamers are treated to lavishly produced high-res backgrounds. Firm favourites from the series previous iterations appear, remaining true to the characteristic SNK style.

The ability to choose from three different fighting styles - Max 2 mode, Super Cancel mode and Guard Break mode - ensures generous tactical depth, and an array of different attack and defense options, including the excellent Just Defense first seen in SNK’s highly lauded Mark of the Wolves, also ensure NEOWAVE is always a challenging and entertaining experience.

The game features 43 characters, 3-on-3 battle format, multiple fighting styles and more.

Through this rough translation of an article on JeuxFrance, Atari has confirmed that gamers in Europe will surely be paying a higher price for PS3/Wii games. The company, who also distributes Sega games in some parts of Europe, has stated that Sonic the Hedgehog for PS3 is going to cost 68 Euros, while World Snooker Championship 2007 will be 74 Euros. The Wii will be 8 Euros cheaper - Sonic Wild Fire and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will both retail for 60 Euros when released.

In its bid to add new features to the PSP, Sony has released the v2.71 firmware upgrade for the handheld, adding two new bullet points to the devices features list.

The bigger of the two changes included in the update is the ability to download game directly through the handheld’s internet browser into the system’s memory stick. The other change is a patch, fixing a function for the LocationFree Player so that video output is displayed properly when an external tuner is selected. Additionally, users in Japan now have access to Sony’s Portable TV download rental service in the country.

The update is available to users from all territories and can be installed by using the built-in update function, or by downloading the update from Sony’s website.

Two games have been delayed: first up is Heart of Empire: Rome, Paradox Interactive’s upcoming strategy title in development at Deep Red (Tycoon City: New York). The RTS title has been postponed until Q1 2007; it will let players build their own Roman empire once released.

In a press release crafted painfully in Hell, DreamCatcher sent word that development time on the Xbox port of Painkiller has been extended to allow them to fine tune the gameplay. Painkiller: Hell Wars currently has no release date.

With the FIFA World Cup less than a week away, Microsoft has announced a couple of promotions that will see a new Xbox 360 bundle and free 360s given out, among other things.

First up is the limited edition 2006 FIFA World Cup Xbox 360 bundle - it will include the Core System console, an exclusively designed FIFA World Cup face plate, a copy of the 2006 FIFA World Cup game by EA and a replica of the official World Cup match ball. The bundle is now available and is retailing for £260.

Xbox Live is now host to England’s official World Cup anthem “World at your Feet” by Embrace. Today is the last day to grab the world exclusive video from Xbox Live; the single is to be released on June 5. As the final piece in its football puzzle, Xbox.com/football is the place to go for the latest World Cup news and gossip direct from Germany. The dedicated website will include updates on everything relating to the World Cup, and it’ll also contain daily updates from the Guardian’s award winning “footy gossip” email, the Fiver.

That’s not all: Xbox and Britvic have teamed up to create the “What’s in your Locker?” ad campaign that will see an Xbox 360 given away every 90 minutes for the duration of the World Cup. The campaign is being promoted with new TV ads featuring England stars David Beckham, John Terry and Paul Robinson. Interested participants have to send in unique text and win code to take part in the ongoing campaign.

Just when you thought Sony’s key executives were the only crazy ones, Microsoft’s Peter Moore comes along and makes a statement so insane… it’s almost scary. In an interview with Kikizo, the man behind the Xbox team got a little too proud of the Xbox 360 and said that the company has “under promised and over delivered” referring to the console’s backwards compatibility with Xbox games.

Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility. We under promised and over delivered on that. It’s a very complicated thing… very complex work. I’m just stunned that we have hundreds of games that are backwards compatible.

He added: “more are coming, but at some point, you just go, there’s enough, let’s move on, or people aren’t as worried about a game being backwards compatible - and I like to think we’ve upheld our end of the bargain in making at least two or maybe three hundred games backwards compat.”

He also talks about larger hard drives for the 360, as well as third-party support, Japanese popularity and more.