Sony has had a checkered past in advertising its PlayStation consoles: they ran an ad in Italy showing a man wearing a crown of thorns with PlayStation symbols on it; and then they ran ads throughout London with “naughty” connotations. What did they do this time? See for yourself:

The above ad was run in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and advertises the upcoming launch of the white PSP in the country. It has caused uproars throughout the Internet, with people taking both sides of the debate: racist, or not. Surprisingly, those who are debating about the so-called “racist” image are from North America where the ad was not run. It is yet to be reported whether any Dutch people were offended by the ads.

Those who were upset by the image in question have not seen the other photographs in the series which clearly shows the contrast between black and white, with the final one showing the black woman in a dominating manner.

Sony took the time to respond to these allegations, stating that “all of the 100 or so images created for the campaign have been designed to show this contrast in colours of the PSPs , and have no other message or purpose.”

I’m not even going to bother taking a side in this, but I’d like to point out something interesting. Art connoisseurs may have noticed the odd pose of the white woman in the first photograph (look at her left hand). I have no idea whether this was intended or not, but it is an analogous comparison to one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous (and notorious) works: Madonna of the Rocks. See if you can spot the reference.

On a related note, I found the flag of Amsterdam to be quite interesting.

Bethesda sent word that “celebrated orchestral composer” Inon Zur has created the original musical score for the recently released Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow game. Available now for the PS2 and PC, the game retells the story of the original PotC film. Zur composed over 45 minutes of original orchestral music, including the main theme, specifically for the game, which was recorded with the Northwest Sinfonia Orchestra at the Bastyr Chapel in Seattle.

Koch and Monte Cristo have announced Silverfall, a new fantasy hack-and-slash action RPG. Scheduled for release this October for £35, the game will feature 150+ creatures and bosses, a create-your-own-character option, 130+ skills and spells, multiplayer modes and more.

Since the dawn of time, the inhabitants of Nelwë have relied on mighty elemental wizards to keep order. But the invention of steam power has overturned this ancient social order. Disillusioned by the introduction of new technology, certain sections of the population have turned instead to the power of nature. Taking advantage of the conflicts tearing apart the factions of nature and science, the forces of darkness lay siege to the magic domains in an attempt to seize power.

From the peaks of Silverfall the Fair to the mist-enshrouded city of Cloudworks, your quest will take you far and wide as you clash headlong with the enemy. Up to two companions will accompany you on your journey as you face mortal danger.

Silverfall™ offers instantly gratifying gameplay, vast open areas to explore and plunder, hordes of unique creatures to cut a swathe through, and a unique interaction system: the way you treat your companions determines your relationship with them and how effective they are in battle.

These have shipped:

• Civilization IV (Mac)
  
• Disciples II – Gold Edition (Steam)
  
• GODS: Lands of Infinity
  
• Jagged Alliance 2 (Steam)
  
• The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II (X360)

• Civilization IV: Warlords

E-distribution has been picking up steam in the last few months – Xbox 360 has a fantastic service called Xbox Live Arcade, offering quick, casual games for a small price; Valve’s Steam has allowed developers (like Ritual) release full games without going through retail. Sony has also jumped on the bandwagon and has divulged plans for the PS3 E-Distribution Initiative that will let both first and third-party developers digitally distribute games via download, directly to the PS3.

Gamasutra had the chance to talk with John Hight, the man behind the PS3 EDI project. He talked about making games available globally, reaching remote markets, curbing used game sales and piracy, among other things. Most interestingly, his comments indicate that PS3’s EDI will see exclusive games for the platform that will take advantage of the machine’s features (especially the “dualshake” controller): “We’re looking for fresh, new ideas that fully exploit the power of PlayStation 3. Our 1st party projects are all unique to PS3. Some of our games, by virtue of their design and hardware demands, simply couldn’t work on Xbox 360.”

He also talked about letting independent developers on the platform as well as development of other content for games. No other details were offered.

Unlike Sony, Nintendo has been very private with details regarding Wii’s launch. Secrets are breeding grounds for rumors and speculation, and have given rise to several expected launch dates for the upcoming motion-sensing console. According to PJ McNealy of American Technology Research, Wii has already entered production and should be hitting stores far sooner than expected. CNN Money’s Chris Morris, who spoke with other anonymous industry sources, expects the console to be launched in September or October.

Nintendo has responded to such rumors. Through Bloomberg they let out word that there is no change in their plans to release the console in the last quarter of this year. The company also stated that it will reveal launch details in September.

Now, go play the waiting game.

Enjoyed Acclaim games? Throwback Entertainment has announced that it has acquired the rights to multiple titles from the now-defunct publisher. Their library of games include Gladiator, Vexx, Extreme-G Racing, Legends of Wrestling, Re-Volt and Summer Heat Volleyball, among many others.

“Acquiring the Acclaim titles provides a significant addition to our company, and will allow us to target different markets and opportunities.” said Thomas Maduri, CEO of Throwback Entertainment, Inc.

Acclaim was established in 1987 and developed, published and marketed several successful franchises. However, the company made several bad choices towards the end of its lifecycle, finally declaring bankruptcy and closing down in 2004.

Sony has been on a downward spiral lately – the PS3 bashing, bad PR handling and financial woes have been plaguing the company for some time now. Now, the company has stooped even lower: it has taken an 80 billion Yen loan – the first in a decade.

With PS3 production hoping to start soon, Sony has taken the three-year-floating-rate bank loan, which will be contributed to by more than 20 Japanese lenders, to “diversify funding sources.”

However, the loan is said to be “for general purposes,” according to Sony spokesperson Koji Kurata. The company intends on investing in semi-conductor manufacturing and to develop LCDs with Samsung. That doesn’t mean that Sony can avoid the sting of the production cost for PS3 and Blu-ray, what with them supposedly taking a loss on each unit sold.

The PS3 will go on sale worldwide this November.

First up the lone demo:

• The Settlers II: The Next Generation on 3D Downloads, 3D Gamers, Boomtown, Computer Games, Filecloud, FileFront`, Gamer’s Hell, VGPRO and Worthplaying

• Battlefield 2 v1.4 beta on the Official Website
  
• F.E.A.R. v1.06 on Sierra FTP
  
• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter v1.20 on the Official Website
  
• Land of Legends v1.20 on Shrapnel Games
  
• Supreme Ruler 2010 update 5 on the Official Website
  
• STACKED with Daniel Negreanu v1.1 on 3D Gamers, FilePlanet and Worthplaying

Legendary game designer Ron Gilbert is at it again: in an interview to Gamasutra, the man behind classics such as the Monkey Island franchise, Maniac Mansion, and many others, stated that he is working on a “very story-heavy, story-based” RPG game. Sadly, he still hasn’t found a publisher “willing” to publish it.

GS: In that vein, do you personally have any new projects you’re working on? You mentioned in some other interviews that you had a new project in the works.

RG: I do have a kind of very story-heavy, story-based kind of RPG game that I’m currently designing, but I’m still looking for a publisher willing to publish it. So I continue to work on it until I find somebody, but there’s a lot of what you talk about here, you know, very heavily story-based, a lot of sensibilities of adventure games mixed with some of the action fun RPG elements.

No other details were provided, though the existence of such a game brings joy to many a gamer’s hearts.

According to this Reuters report, Microsoft is planning on releasing a music and video player by this Christmas season, dubbed the “iPod killer” due to obvious comparisons to Apple’s tremendously popular iPod.

The Microsoft player will, unlike the iPod, allow users to download music and videos over the air; it will also employ the iTunes model, letting users buy individual tracks or whole albums. They also have a number of other things going for it to be a real threat to Apple.

So what’s this got to do with gaming? Apparently, this device was reported far earlier, although it was erroneously reported to be a “portable Xbox”. The main man behind the Xbox 360, J Allard, is behind the development of this “iKiller”; he has been out of the spotlight for quite some time now, and this just might be the reason why.

Microsoft would neither confirm nor deny the Reuters report. But it would be very interesting to see if the world is ready for a Microsoft music/video player.

A post on the German JoWood forums (rough English translation) carries word that the notorious Starforce copy protection system has been dropped from Gothic III. The game will now feature a copy protection scheme that is more “gentle” to the user.