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It's these kind of promotional materials that put Atlus in a special place in our hearts. Atlus' upcoming Kenka Bancho may look like a straight-up brawler at first, but it has that special Atlus localization magic that has us giving it a second look. With battles initiated by laser eyes, and the ability to create throwdowns like "Cry for your Argentina," Badass Rumble is definitely demanding our attention. We can't wait to see more before its November 10th release.

"If you save now, your save data will be saved in the state in which you cannot use the DLC."This error message has been scaring off players that picked up Disgaea 2 for PSP. However, NIS America admits that this error message is unwarranted, and "the message will appear regardless of whether or not the current saved data contains DLC." Players are encouraged to simply ignore the error. "Our investigation has revealed that this message will not harm your game play experience with Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days or any future Downloadable Content offerings."There will be a fix to this error, but it won't be available until late November. According to NIS, the company plans on making the first DLC for Disgaea 2 -- Sapphire from Disgaea 3 -- free for all users due to the "distress and confusion" caused by the error. Until then, players will have to continue their journey through the game, ignoring the save error along the way.[Via Kotaku]

Tonight's episode of the BBC consumer advocacy program Watchdog will scrutinize a phenomenon which a few of you might be familiar with -- the PlayStation 3's "Yellow Light of Death." However, before the episode hit the airwaves, Sony UK Managing Director Ray Maguire issued a six-page response to the Watchdog team, picking apart the program's investigative methods and questioning their findings. During the episode, the Watchdog team sends Sony a technical report for three PS3s which had succumbed to hardware failure. This is one of Sony's biggest issues with the report -- Maguire explained, "The testing concerned a sample of only three PS3s, which cannot, on any basis, be deemed to be representative of a UK user base of 2.5 million." According to Maguire, Sony's got some numbers of its own for hardware failure rates. With a quick search of the company's warranty database, Maguire found that, "fewer than one half of one per cent of units have been reported as failing in circumstances where the yellow indicator is illuminated." You should be able to watch the controversial episode on the Watchdog site within the next few days -- but GamesIndustry has the entire transcript of Sony's letter for your immediate perusal.

Sorry, North America, the Europeans may be trying Trine, but the game isn't coming out this week. There's always the new free content for Arkham Asylum ... there, there, doesn't that just help make the Trine pain melt away? No? Well, there's the picture search game Interpol and the classic Final Fantasy Tactics, along with plenty of other content that may be of interest. Check it all out after the break. Choose your platform to view the corresponding release list: (Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)

The identity of the PSP role-playing game which Disgaea developer Nippon Ichi teased in July has been revealed. Appropriately titled Zettai Hero Kaizou Keikaku (which translates to Absolute Hero Modding Project), the game pits players up against randomly generated dungeons, where they can search for equipment with which to fully customize their character, or battle enemies in order to level up their characters forever. The game has a 2010 launch window for Japan, but Ichi hasn't mentioned anything about a North American release. That's a shame -- based on these screenshots over at Dengeki, it looks right up our isometric alley.

Assassin's Creed 2 creative director Patrice Désilets wants everyone to play his game. More importantly, he wants everyone to play all of his game, regardless of the numerous in-game bonuses being used to incentivize pre-orders. The candid creator told Kotaku that those who stalk their prey with a little more patience won't miss out on the extra missions. "Eventually everyone will have the entire game," Désilets said.While it's nice that Ubisoft intends to "unlock everything" in Ezio's rampage, the one thing none of us will get -- no matter who you pre-order from -- is a conclusive ending to the franchise. As Désilets told us during E3 2009, "At the end of AC2 you'll say‚ 'Holy crap, I never saw it coming.'"

“The Japanese market is really shrinking. How are we going to gain success in these (other) markets? We have to develop the global title in the first place. This is something the Japan studio is annoyed with. This is our dilemma. …Unless we gain success in the overseas market, our studio [...]

Speaking at Austin GDC, Justin Cooney from Sony Computer Entertainment spoke about the upcoming PSP minis program to a crowd of developers eager to start creating games and applications for the system. They promise an extremely fast process to get onto the PlayStation Network: no stage one or two approvals, and very light Q&A. They're hoping to average three to five days for approvals, which contrasts with up to two weeks for normal-sized PSP games.The minis program is also fairly limited. You can't develop network or online features for it (goodbye multiplayer), it doesn't support DLC, and you can't use it to work with peripherals. Developers will also have to have their game approved by the ESRB, which costs money. You can also release your titles in all three territories, but you need to sign agreements with each territory (North America, Japan, Europe) in order to do so.Sony is definitely taking an iPhone App Store approach to this process, and Cooney himself dropped the iPhone name a few times. We're wondering if they've considered that there are over 20k games now on the App Store, and if they've prepared themselves for the onslaught and how they'll be devoting a lot of time to minis approvals. So, look for PSPFart to be available for download sometime soon.

Sega and Red Entertainment's Sakura Wars series has enjoyed great popularity in Japan (witness the Sakura Wars Dreamcast system), but despite that success, it's never been localized. It seemed that non-importers would never get to try the long-running strategy RPG series, until NIS America announced plans to localize Sakura Wars V as Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love on Wii and PS2.It is the novelty of a Sakura Wars game in America, along with the appeal of a mech game set in an alternate 1920s NYC, that sustained us through this trailer (after the break), despite the voice acting. Don't worry, the game will include both English and Japanese!

If you're a busy body with an infinitesimal attention span, Sony's added a feature to the PSP Go that should land squarely in your wheelhouse. First unveiled during a Gamespot UK unboxing of the new handheld (around the 10:00 mark), the Go allows players of any game to save their progress and perform other functions on the device. Upon returning to the game, you can instantly hop right back into whatever it was you were doing at the time of your save. In the aforementioned unboxing video, Gamespot UK's Guy Cocker saves his progress during a Motorstorm: Arctic Edge race in order to watch a trailer for Motorstorm: Arctic Edge. Rarely do we get urges to watch trailers for games we're currently playing -- but we suppose we've succumbed to stranger impulses before.

Atten-hut! Upcoming PSP title SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3 has just been cleared for deployment. On November 24, several strategic retail locations will become targets of tactical invasions. These may include actual Targets. Once on the shelf, the title should be able to blend in amongst the other games. So, in preparation of Operation SOCOM Release, your orders are to form a squad and gear up. Your country needs you!And, if you want to be all you can be, note that SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3 has some incentives for pre-ordering. If you purchase early at select retails or pick up the game via PSN during the first 30 days following release, you'll get access to some specialized troops: the Kommando Speizialkrafte and Special Air Service, the former being an operative "under the Special Operations Division" and the latter being an elite British soldier who is "the template by which other Special Forces are organized." Each comes armed with the F2000 assault rifle and AS-50 BMG sniper/anti-material rifle, respectively.

Naughty Dog is hell-bent on pushing the online functionality of Uncharted 2 beyond anything else on the PlayStation 3. The multiplayer demo reveals yet another new feature for the upcoming PS3 game: Twitter support. According to The BBPS, you'll be able to have the game automatically tweet updates whenever you connect to a multiplayer game, unlock a Trophy, or complete a single-player chapter. Twitter support is already live, as evidenced by these tweets from Naughty Dog's Arne Meyer and SCEA's Jeff Rubenstein.The auto-tweets will send inquisitive readers to a detailed stats page on Naughty Dog's website. Here, you can see someone's kill/death ratio, career length, amount of virtual money, and more. Further details will be broken down in the "Match History," "Weapons" and "Medals" tabs -- but all those features are currently "coming soon."

Looks like SCEA may be working on a brand new multiplayer online game called TV Superstars, as evidenced by a new trademark unearthed by Siliconera. Details are scant beyond the fact that it's both online and a game. Our first guess? It's Sony's attempt at competing against Xbox LIVE's 1 Vs. 100 application (pictured above). With so little information to work with, we can't really offer any other hypotheses.

Here's something we're betting Sony will want to wish away using its "magic wand." Speaking with 1UP, Capcom producer Jun Takeuchi (Resident Evil 5) noted, "Speaking to other developers in Japan, I've heard a few of them say they were delighted by the Sony motion controller because they can just port over their Wii titles to the PS3."We're going to be optimistic here and presume these devs are at least considering a fresh coat of pixels for their ports. It's probably of more concern that, outside of Nintendo's first-party offerings, we've yet to see many studios even get Wii motion control right. Somehow, it's hard to picture Sony saying, "Yes, we welcome your waggle-infused minigame compilations with open arms!" Then again, PS3 "does everything" -- maybe even Wii games.

A PlayStation 3 Slim bundle containing a 250GB hard drive and Uncharted 2 was leaked by an anonymous tipster at Engadget. Though no price or release date info was provided, Engadget was able to independently confirm the bundle's legitimacy. We've reached out to Sony for comment and have yet to hear back as of publication [see update below], though a representative from Uncharted 2 developer Naughty Dog had yet to even hear of the bundle. Considering we heard about the larger hard drive nearly a month ago via an FCC filing (those things don't lie people!), we're pretty sure the Sony's just holding off on an announcement until the Tokyo Game Show next week. Those three UK-based PS3 bundles now seem to be that much more likely, don't they?Update: Sony America says, "That tip is a complete fabrication." To be clear, this statement does not represent SCE (Japan) or SCEE (Europe), though it does absolutely deny the existence of any 250GB PlayStation 3 bundle in the US this year.

We're finding it difficult to decide whether this piece of news indicates the beginning of a beautiful, shining era for humanity -- or whether it's an irrefutable sign of the swiftly approaching end of days. The PS3's internet browser home page now includes a "Papa John's" button, which allows esurient clickers to order hot, delicious pizza with a few quick taps of the DualShock 3's face buttons. To put it in Console War terminology, the PS3 just discovered the atomic bomb. Unless the Xbox 360 learns how to give foot massages, or the Wii actually starts printing money, the unthinkable invention of PSPizza has ensured Sony's inexorable reign.

With the revelation of the PS3 Slim and its accompanying price cut, it looks like things are really on the up and up for Sony. It seems that things are so up that many consumers may have difficulty finding a PS3 on the shelves. According to Stern Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia -- as reported on IndustryGamers -- strong "pent-up" demand may lead to PS3 shortages by the end of September. Furthermore, he expects that September sales of the console may climb as much as 75 percent over last year, possibly more if supplies hold up. Finally, Bhatia noted that strong PS3 sales could affect sales of the 360 as well. The reason, according to Bhatia, is that the 360 Arcade SKU maintained its $199 price while the Elite price drop really amounted to no more than a replacement of the Pro tier. Joystiq would be remiss not to point out that the Elite bundle even received a few downgrades in the process. Looks like Jack Tretton may have made that $1200 bet two and a half years too soon.

We cornered Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley after his Austin GDC keynote (literally -- he was backed into a corner and could not escape us. Sorry, John!) to get some kind of status update on the PS3/PC MMO action game, The Agency. While we didn't get the firm release date we hoped for, Smedley reassured us that the game's in no danger of not coming out. "Next year" was as closely as Smedley could approximate the release date. "Can't get -- because I've been wrong like three times with that game. And we're not going to release it until it's right. But there's this rumor going around that we're going to cancel it -- that's ridiculous." It's worth noting that a cancellation rumor was debunked by SOE in November, but it's been ten months since then! Seems like a good time to assert once again that the game is still in development. "No," Smedley continued, "we're going full-bore towards it. We're simply keeping it under wraps more because we want to make it the best possible game we can. I'm an FPS player first and foremost, so we're going to get that game right, period." Smedley firmly denied that the departure of staff would affect the game's development.

The Q&A session following the Free Realms-centric keynote speech, delivered earlier today by Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley at GDC Austin, contained a hopeful tidbit for those looking to play the aforementioned free-to-play MMO on their consoles. When we asked about the release window for the PS3 version of Free Realms, Smedley cheekily replied, "I'm wondering, too!" He then added, "It's next year sometime, toward the middle of the year." During his speech, Smedley also addressed the functions which would be specifically tailored for the MMO's console outing, saying, "For the PlayStation 3 version, it's very likely that the Eye is going to be something we support." We hope the Eye's implementation isn't of a voyeuristic nature -- if there's anything our late-night Uno sessions taught us, it's Camera + Internet Strangers = Terror.

Eurogamer reports that Nedgame, Holland's "largest specialized retail outlet," won't sell the PSP Go when it launches this October. The €250 price for the device (the PSP-3000 sells for €80 [$117] less), along with the absence of UMD drive, is cited as justification for the boycott. It's speculated that the core reason Nedgame doesn't want to sell the device is because the company won't be able to sell games with the handheld -- and, well, selling games is how game stores typically make money.According to Eurogamer, Nedgame isn't the only no-Go retailer in Europe, with Eurogamer Spain also claiming to hear whispers from retailers refusing to sell the handheld. We've yet to hear of any North American retailers officially boycotting the system.