Hey, pal -- remember that 160GB PS3 Drake's Fortune bundle we told you about back in August? Well thanks to the totally awesome skills of one intrepid reader, we now know that they're available for purchasing pleasure at your local Best Buy (and other spots, we like to imagine). From what we can tell based on that extremely blurry photo you see, the package will sell for a holiday-destroying $499.99, so you'd better hope grandma drops a big check on you this season.

[Thanks, Nasser]

A few moment's hesitation prevent you from placing the winning bid on that sweet, customized Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 a few weeks back? It's okay, we've all been there -- sitting at the screen, cursor hovering over the "Bid Now" button, wracked with indecision, finally saying "Why not?" just as the timer hits 0. Usually that's cause for a lifetime of bitter regret, but this time you're in luck. The winning bid of $17,000 turned out to be bogus, so the creators have placed the machine on eBay again, ready for you to ponder anew. Now, before you make some snide remarks about $17k being way too much for a tarted up PS3, take a look at the attention to detail here, and remember that 15 percent of the proceeds are going straight to the Child's Play charity -- a factor that should hopefully reduce the vehemence of those remarks by roughly a fifth.

If you managed to pull in the reigns and hold off on Fanatec's wireless Porsche 911 Turbo Racing Wheel back in April, you can get a beautiful alternative right about now with even more utility. Today, the outfit has introduced the limited edition Porsche 911 Turbo S Racing Wheel for Xbox 360 -- which, contrary to its name, actually plays nice with the PlayStation 3 and PC. Of note, there are three variants from which to choose: a 911 Turbo S Edition, Clubsport Edition, and Pure Edition, all of which are licensed by Porsche Lizenz- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH and feature a 900° steering angle. You'll also find a 6+1 shifter, and if you opt for the Clubsport Edition, you'll get high-end pedals that are actually crafted from aluminum and feature a load cell pressure sensor for the brake. The pain? $250, $400 and $150 in order of mention, 90% of which is totally paying for that logo in the middle.

We heard some pretty far-fetched stuff back in June to the tune of a break-apart DualShock 3, and lo and behold, it seems that someone at Sony Computer Entertainment America is taking the idea quite seriously. A recent patent application was filed by the company, and it fairly clearly lays out the very kind of design we'd (not really) been expecting. In essence, the gamepad would consist of two pieces, each of which would utilize an "ultrasonic tracking system" for some type of game console / peripheral to recognize 3D inputs. Best of all, the approach here sounds significantly different enough from what's used in the Wiimote that Sony could avoid months upon months of litigation -- imagine that, right? It's hard to say whether this stroke of genius will ever amount to anything, but at least there's a chance, however minuscule.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Seriously, calm down a minute. Your world has not just gotten infinitely better, although hearing the words "PlayStation" and "open platform" in the same phrase may make you think otherwise. In a relatively quiet announcement made at Casual Connect in Kiev, Ukraine, Sony Europe's George Bain proclaimed that developers would "no longer have to submit a game for content approval," effectively making the PS2 "an open platform." He pointed out examples from Russia and India, noting that they could now "create low-development cost titles and release them in their market." In all honesty, we have our doubts that this decision will make any real waves in North America, though Bain did mention a "global approval system" to replace the separated processes currently serving Europe, Japan and America. Now, if SCEA comes out and says something similar about the PS3, then you'll hear some real excitement in our voice.

[Via Joystiq, image courtesy of GamesAreFun]

There's no doubt that Microsoft's Xbox 360 will have the price advantage this holiday season, and if you were hoping to see a bona fide price cut following Sony's introduction of the $399.99 80GB PlayStation 3, you'll probably be waiting 'til late 2009. Speaking at the Gamer 3.0 conference in London this week, Sony's own Ray Maguire was quoted as saying that the pressure for a price drop from consumers was always there, but given that it "has a business to run" and shareholders to please, it probably won't be decreasing the PS3's price before the end of 2008. He also stated that "at the moment, there's a market place for the PS3," and that "the price of the console [won't] be an issue at all." In all honesty, he's probably right -- after all, this will be the first holiday season where Blu-ray isn't competing with some other physical HD format, and c'mon, you know you'll pay a premium to dabble in Life with PlayStation.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

This day has been a long time coming, but Activision's next iteration of the Guitar Hero cash cow franchise is officially available. Truth be told, the game (and requisite instruments) was sitting on a-many of store shelves yesterday, but there's nothing like a formal announcement to really push you to take a few hours from work and rock out this evening. There's a variety of bundles out there ranging from the game alone ($49.99 to $59.99), the game and a guitar ($89.99 to $99.99) and the full-on band kit ($179.99 to $189.99), so make sure you choose wisely when heading out to drop some dough.

Hackers, like life, will find a way. Sony knows that all too well thanks to the PSP, but so far the PlayStation 3 has stood strong in the face of legions of nerds trying to find a way to exploit it. A potentially major breakthrough may have been made, though, as well-known PS3 hacker StreetskaterFU (we've no idea what he's going for with that name -- really) has managed to decrypt the beta client for Sony's PlayStation Home service. Curious devs can now poke around in the files looking for a way to exploit the newish in-game XMB functionality, potentially allowing homebrew apps and game backups without hard drive swapping. There's no guarantee it will lead anywhere in the end, but you don't care either way, right? Our upstanding readership would never participate in such heinously illegal activities.

[Thanks, James]

Hey there, budget-conscious gamers: the Vii didn't quite pan out the way we'd all hoped, but we just want you to know you still don't have to spend $500 or wait for a PS3 Slim to hit the shelves to have a gaming experience worthy of 2008. Just pick Sonilex -- it's a fraction of the size of the PS3, and at around 32 bucks even the most stingy gamer can splurge for it. Word is 41 "NES games" have been released for Sonilex this year alone (probably piled into that odd-looking cart on the left there), including, incredibly but really, the unauthorized NES port of "Tekken." After all, the game cart says "2008" on it so you know you're getting the absolute cutting edge of NES games -- like, ones that were never even released until just now, okay? No word on Blu-ray though. That's a deal-breaker if you ask us.

Sony didn't want to make a big deal about this (so humble, that Sony) but the PlayStation 3's recent 2.50 firmware update has a few extra additions aimed straight at home theater buffs. First up is a place to enter your DivX VOD Registration code -- necessary if you want to get any of that Sony Pictures or Warner Bros. DivX-encoded video that's on the way -- along with new Sequential Playback and 50Hz video output settings, plus support for chroma upsampling & Mosquito Noise Reduction video enhancement on homemade Blu-ray discs and DVDs. On a more minor note, the BD/DVD settings section has been renamed just Video Settings, while the Cinema Conversion and Upscale options are getting all their mail delivered to BD/DVD Cinema Conversion and BD/DVD Upscaler, respectively. Peep the PlayStation site for the rest of the exciting details (there's a German keyboard layout change that is not to be missed), and then go back to watching Hulu in a tiny box with a poor framerate in your newly Flash-enabled browser.

[Via PS3 Blog]

Sitting idle while your new PS3 game installs is painful, but since it's all in the interest of reducing subsequent load times it's worth the wait, right? Not for the impatient sods at ExtremeTech, who tried to speed things up further by swapping out their original 60GB PS3's HDD with Intel's hot new 80GB X25-M SSD. The result? Sadly, those multi-minute installs from disc were largely unaffected, since the limitation here is Blu-ray drive speed and not disk speed. However, installs of downloaded demos were upwards of 30-40 percent faster, as were post-installation load times in most games. That's an impressive boost, but at a cost of about $600 for the SSD itself you'll be spending about 50 percent more than an entire PS3 of the 80GB spinning disk variety. In other words, this one's not for the frugal modders, but it is so choice if you have the means.

Good news, friends, you won't have to wait until tomorrow to get at that new Flash 9 support offered up by the PS3 2.50 update: the firmware is available now. Sony tossed in a few other assorted updates like power-saving options and voice chat enhancements, but we're sure you'll be too busy watching Doogie Howser, M.D. on Hulu to notice. Happy downloading!

Update: PSP 5.00 is available now too.

[Thanks, Tony]