Take-Two Interactive Software, the distributor of Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and other games, has given word that it is planning to expand into Asia Pacific markets. The company has tapped an experienced senior executive to help them establish a foothold in Asia. For more information, don't hesitate to click on the "read more" link below.

It looks like gamers in North America will finally be able to relive the epic battles of the Three Kingdoms as Koei announced the release of Warriors Orochi for the PC and PlayStation Portable by next month. The PC version of this classic hack and slash title features enhanced graphics and will be available exclusively through digital download. For more details on the game's release read the full article after the jump.

Sony PlayStation Portable owners looking for more hack and slash action on the go will be glad to know that Koei's Warriors Orochi may hit in a matter of months. The publisher has already announced the game's Japanese launch date, which might suggest that North America may not be too far along. Details in the full article.

Frank Yu, former Casual Games Producer for Microsoft in China, recently gave a report on the state of piracy in China following the Hong Kong raid where authorities seized 10,000 mod chips for Nintendo consoles. The last major news of piracy in China was last year; at that time it was for the Xbox 360.

Remember our report about Xbox 360 and Wii piracy in the Philippines? Turns out piracy is popular for both the Xbox 360 and the Wii in China as well.

According to Yu though, there isn't much demand for the PlayStation 3 so there's no modding or any distribution of pirated games in China that he is aware of and he doesn't even mention the PSP, which is a popular victim in many other areas. The Nintendo DS isn't spared however, as the Supercard (R4 card) is being sold in China.

Yu states that the Japanese Wii is a more popular candidate for modding since the US Wii has more protection. Modded Wiis can still download firmware although some of the more recent games, like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't work (although Yu believes this won't be true for long).

As for the Xbox 360, piracy is still very much active and rampant in the country. While Xbox 360 consoles in China will still be shut out of Xbox Live when MS detects that the console is modded, Yu has heard of a rumor that talks of a mod chip you can switch on and off. One just has to turn it off to log on to Xbox Live.

Hacking and modding is rampant but also incredible efficient - so much that the "folks at MS are always impressed by the speed and workaround that hackers and modders do to the motherboard." Hacking in China is also popular with foreigners, who aren't strangers with hacking shops at all.

As much as we all want to hear that the new PlayStation Portable batteries Sony's dishing out can be converted to Pandora, it can't. Fanjita informs us via the Noobz site that the new Sony PSP batteries are Pandora-proof.

Fanjita got his Sony PSP-110 battery (the fat PSP's original batt) recently from Amazon, and it seems Sony's been doing some patching, making it hard to be successfully converted to the ultimate universal PSP unbricker from Noobz and C+D. The homebrew coder says that even flashing an EEPROM image shows lots of errors when using the new battery.

So far, dev says that the only difference of this new Sony PSP battery from the older versions is that this was made in Japan, while the older ones were made in China. But the Pandora-proof batteries shouldn't be a problem for the homebrew users. Fanjita suggests that we get new large capacity batteries to use as a regular battery and the just use the original battery that came with the PSP for Pandora. Or we can also use the multi-IPL loader from Booster so our Pandora batteries can also become our primary batteries. He goes on to warn us that we shouldn't buy new Sony PSP batteries if we're intending to convert it to Pandora. Nice guy.

For those of you planning to unbrick your PSPs (assuming you still haven't done that or have just had your PSP bricked) using the Pandora, you can familiarize yourself on the how-tos with the easy-to-follow tutorial from FreePlay.

Wondering how the world looks from your handheld? Glennio dropped by the QJ.NET Forums earlier to inform the PSP community of a web portal that PSPnoob originally released over at Dutch psp-hacks.nl, titled PSP WorldExplorer v1.0 beta.

This portal will enable the guys to use the PSP's WiFi capability to view one of 20 webcam portals located around the world. Imagine mat_dizzy's PSP Earth portal, and you'll know what we're talking about. Here are PSP WorldExplorer's currently supported webcams:

• The Netherlands:
• Sittard
• Valkenburg
• Amsterdam
• France:
• Eiffel Tower
• USA:
• New York, Broadway
• New York, Brooklyn bridge
• New York, Manhattan
• New York, Empire State Building
• New York-5th Avenue/45th Street
• United Kingdom:
• London (Big Ben is, London eye, etc.)
• Glasgow
• Japan:
• Tokyo
• Kyoto
• Others:
• Aquarium webcam
• Norway ski-cam
• cruising chip cam
• Cruiseship cam 2
• Pyramids (Egypt)
• Panda cam (China)

Planned updates for PSP WorldExplorer include an English version, and additional functions like country information and weather reports. We'd like to express our thanks to Glennio for passing on the news from PSPnoob. Also, the dev explained that he couldn't post it himself as his English isn't that good. Make sure to drop by QJ's PSP Development Forums and Glennio's site for further information on PSP WorldExplorer.

Download: PSP WorldExplorer v1.0 Beta
Visit: QJ's PSP Development Forum

The Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) has recently released an official announcement ticking off the need-to-know facts of this year's Tokyo Game Show (TGS). The freshly wired press release claimed that an anticipated 168 exhibitors will strut their stuff on 1,708 booths over eight spacious halls in Makuhari Messe, Mihama-ku, Chiba City starting September 20, 2007.

 

From 2007 onwards, the TGS will serve as a essential part in Japan's International Contents Festival (CoFesta). And while it will serve as a bid for major publishers towards the end-of-year season of software releases, it will also bring mobile telephony forward to the tech-savvy masses, courtesy of special sponsor NTT DoCoMo.

TGS2007, extending its show to four days for the first time, will also be introducing new exhibitors from around the world, including companies from The Netherlands, Sweden and Thailand, adding to the 51 international participating exhibitors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.

The business leg of the event is also stretched to two full days, a conclusion of which is succeeded with open exhibition to a targeted gathering of 180,000 attendees on September 22-23. The first two days of the Nikkei co-organized event will be open only to attendees with business in mind, touting a TGS Forum 2007 program keynoted by none other than Kazuo Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment's (SCE) president and group CEO.

Need to know more? Then head on over to the full article, right after the jump!

Gaming in Asia is often associated with Japan, South Korea and China, but the region as a whole is catching up to the growing industry as evidenced by more events being organized to forge cooperation and spread new knowledge on the field.

Games Convention Asia Conference (GCAC) is among the first of such large scale events outside the three aforementioned nations. It's the equivalent of Europe's GCDC and this year, Singapore is hosting it.

The event is none-business in nature and more oriented on talks which seek to impart insights on the state of the industry. However, such conferences have been known to be venues where parties interested in starting commercial ties get acquainted and start partnerships in the long run.

Speakers from Europe, North America and Asia are in the roster of those who will be taking the stage as facilitators of discussions. Bob Bates, story writer behind Unreal Tournament II, will be there, as well as Steve Schnur, EA's Worldwide Executive for Music and Audio.

Local stalwart Chris Natsuume will also be among the first to speak in the events. He was largely responsible for the creation of the game Far Cry. Frank Sliwka, GCDC Project Manager, commented on the new event, stating:

We are confident that the GC Asia Conference will establish itself as the leading platform for the game development community in Asia. The program we put forward will provide attendees with the kind of practical knowledge and numerous networking opportunities for which GC development conferences are well known.

The Games Convention Asia Conference will commence September 6 and last for two days, although no particular venue in Singapore has been named as of press time.

If some of you are still wondering if the "magical memory stick and special battery" for the PSP is true or not, well, the video clip below will keep you guessing some more. It shows a guy (okay, a hand) downgrading a PlayStation Portable unit from firmware 3.50 to 2.71.

Just like the earlier video we shared with you, this one seems to originate from China as well. And again, just like the first video, it seems that these folks are not so keen on sharing their secrets as a good deal of effort was spent to hide the memory stick and the battery from view.

Based from a rough translation, we learned that this magical memory stick is able to do its trick because it's acting like a bootable disc for the PSP. The previously mentioned third pin in the battery will prevent the unit from reading any firmware data and redirect it to the memory stick. This, then, puts the PSP in a state known as "Factory Mode".

If you are wondering why firmware 2.71, take note that this is the lowest fimrware that motherboard TA-086 supports. Despite the fact that the PSP has been placed under "Factory Mode", it is still running on an un-patched motherboard.

The Illuminati exploit (on dl.qj.net) has been downloaded around 4,000+ times. Lumines sales are reaching stellar marks with a 14,000% increase on Amazon. And right about now, everyone's just sitting, waiting, and wishing for that downgrader. Seems like we should turn our eyes to the other side of the planet for a softdown for PSP FW 3.50 though. Or do we?

Below is a video fished off of the far reaches of the net, hailing all the way from a store in Shenzhen (a sub-province in Guangdong, China) where they claim to know how to softdown a PSP with firmware 3.10 or higher. This vid shows a PSP FW 3.50 downgrade in action with the help of what some people strongly believe to be "the magical un-bricking" memory stick and battery from Sony.

Why so? It's because the salesclerk from the store kept telling the girl (the one videotaping the whole downgrading process) to only show the right side of the PSP - not the left side where the memory stick can be seen. Seems like these guys want to keep things under wraps. (Damn!)

 

Common sentiment online holds that the video doesn't appear to be fake and pretty much the real deal. We've yet to hear anything from Dark AleX or Noobz about this, so keep on your toes for more updates! The (homebrew) game's afoot!

Download: Illuminati 'Hello World' exploit for Lumines