So when's the next major gaming event? Here's one: Capcom's CAPTIVATE08, that will be held in Las Vegas at the end of May in lieu of Capcom Gamer's Day event. What's so special about this exclusive event aside from hot gaming news, you ask? A chance to attend it, of course! More details in the full article.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced that the nominations for the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards has finally been closed. The final list of candidates has been compiled and is currently entering the general voting stage. Want to find out if your bet got into the final list? Read the full article!

Sony's John Koller was all over CES 2008 with the PlayStation Portable. He talked about how good 2007 was for the handheld and what's to come in the year 2008. Accessories, big games you won't find in consoles, added features, and an expanded multimedia capability set awaits everyone who owns the PSP. See the full version for the video interview on John Koller.

More speakers have been added to the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit's speaker roster. Joining the roster for next year's event are PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura, who is currently working on a new music title for the Nintendo Wii, and newly-appointed Entertainment Software Association president Michael D. Gallagher. More new speakers at the full article.

Phil Harrison sitting down with N'Gai Croal over at D.I.C.E in Las Vegas was definitely one of the highlights of the event. Since the range of topics covered by in the interview is quite wide, what we'll do is list down some of Phil's answers that we feel can cause some folks to raise eyebrows, and then either feel more positive or more cynical when it comes to all things Sony.

We selected these statements because we believe that they're intriguing enough that each of them could generate pages worth discussion and speculation. Below are Mr. Harrison's words.

Attracting a wider audience:

• We are developing some things that we think are going to stimulate the usage of PlayStation 3 beyond hardcore gamers and into wider audiences.
• We are developing things which we hope are going to stimulate the use of PlayStation 3 beyond hardcore audiences. Something we've developed in Europe is "social gaming", we've had great success with Singstar and Buzz, Singstar over 7 million units shipped so far. I did bring a PS3 with a couple of demos on it so that if N'Gai asked boring questions we could sit and play Motorstorm for a while.

Read the rest of this article after the Jump.

Midway, publisher of this year's most anticipated next-gen games, celebrated Midway Gamers Day 2007 last Thursday in Hard Rock Casino's main auditorium in Las Vegas. Among the highlights of their party were the trailers to the their upcoming games BlackSite: Area 51, LOTRO: Shadows of Angmar, Unreal Tournament 3 and Hour of Victory.

Midway announced to their guests the sheer amount of time and resources they have invested into next generation console game development, with nothing shy of US$100 million and up to 700 employees all put into the production for games for the XBox 360, PS3, Wii and PC. It was here that Epic Games' VP Mark Rein announced the name-change for Unreal Tournament 2007 to Unreal Tournament 3.

It was changed not to highlight that it was an exclusive for the PS3, but to underline the fact that it is running "the next generation of the Unreal franchise, based on the Unreal 3 engine." On the contrary, Epic announced here that the newly renamed UT3 is going to be released also for the XBox 360, erasing yet another title from the PS3 exclusive list.

The last of many highlights to be shown was Stranglehold, Midway's adaptation of the John Woo's 1992 Hong Kong movie Hard Boiled. Other shows included the Wii edition of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Touchmaster DS for the Nintendo DS, Hot Brain for the PSP, TNA iMPACT! for the XBox 360 and The Wheelman - a film-game crossover project starring (and executive-produced by) none other than Vin Diesel.

Quite the year Midway had last year. It looks to be even better this year.

We're not quite sure how this one would exactly work but it sure is sounding sweet and heavenly. In this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a Sony official was quoted saying they are planning to include portable files on Blu-Ray discs that will in turn allow users to copy movies to laptops and other portable electronics.

When he mentioned portable, we're pretty sure (or kind of hoping) he was referring to the PSP. It is no secret that they've always wanted to boost software sales for their handheld, and the Blu-Ray format is in a deadlock with Microsoft's HD DVD. So when you really think about it, this move is genius.

The Sony official we're talking about is actually David Bishop, the head of the company's Home Entertainment Unit. His exact words read:

Sony Pictures Entertainment will include portable files on Blu-Ray DVDs that can be transferred without a download. Sony may add the feature this year. It's not currently part of anything on our current release schedule, but we'll probably roll it out sometime this year.

Sony, our dear, feel free to take all the time you want and you need perfecting this one. But please make sure that the PSP is well in your heads whenever you think about the word portable.

We've seen quite a lot of PSP mods in our days, but for this one, we're quite not sure if you can call it as a mod per se. See it's a media player, and it's also a GPS navigator, but there's one very essential thing missing for it to even come close to being in competition with our beloved PSPs - games.

Fellas, behold the Clifford Scout 420 GPS Navi and Media Player. Made by Directed Electronics, maker of tons of commonly known electronics names, this nifty handheld is all prepped to be launched at the upcoming CES 2007 to be held in Las Vegas. Critics have been commenting on how the Clifford Scout 420 looks an awful lot like a very familiar "gadget" close to our hearts. Now now, we know this can never come close to your PSPs but with the PSP slowly moving toward its GPS capabilities, you also have to wonder: what if this Clifford Scout 420 also makes the move to having games?

Interesting what-if, eh? So anyway, no info yet on how much this baby will cost or where it's gonna be available, but with the CES 2007 set to kick off on January 8, we'll get to see just how it compares to the PSP in terms of GPS and media playback capabilites.

Even as the hectic PS3 launch days come to a close, Sony's already setting its sights on a new ad campaign not for their new contender for next-gen console, but for its little brother, the PSP. For the dudes still going WT* over the incredibly freaky dustball ad campaign Sony launched (No, wait, the PS3 ads are even funkier...) will be happy to know that this time around, they've decided to skip the..exotic...approach they've been dishing out, and are going with something a normal.

Keep an eye out for some of the more In-'Yo-Face major campaigns they're launching as the season turns chilly, and fat bearded men in red suits start a-prowling:

• Watch the airwaves as the "Find Me" TV ad campaign goes nationwide. The ad features about one man's quest to find his love interest using only his PSP system, a 4GB filled with her photos, music and videos - for a minute there, this sounded like tech-stalking.
• Game retailers Circuit City, GameStop, Target, and Toys “R” Us will be sponsoring PSP Spot Download Stations, from where PSP owners can DL some cool stuff for this units, like game demos, movie trailers, music clips, mini-strategy guides, and wallpapers.
• If you're ever in the neighborhood, check out the PSP-replica billboard at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana Ave .- it's constantly updated with the latest PSP news. That'd be the image you see on top.
  
• And finally, there's a dedicated RSS channel for PSP content delivery that's just been set up.

These are just the louder ads that we heard from PSP3d though - expect the usual barrage of posters and flyers at your local stores or subway as we near Christmas.

You've just checked out the latest decrypter for your PSP. And everyone is still waiting for the next DevHook. What do you do in the meantime? How do you kill time? Image Entertainment just released three UMD movies for this week. Maybe it would be good to give them a look.

The release targets PSP fans who are into different extreme sports as well. On top of the list is The Best of Super Speeders. Watch modified luxury racing cars such as Lamborghinis and Ferraris slug it out in the cities of Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles. This movie takes street racing into a whole new level as it features head-to-head battles and even a rare top speed run to 200mph on a public highway in the middle of the day.

Teddybear Crisis showcases household X-games medalists Tanner Hall, Jon Olson and Simon Dumont in a new Ski film. Directed by Henrick Rostrup and Kris Ostness, watch and be amazed by some of the biggest jumps you'll ever see (90ft. Pyramid Gap and 120ft Chad´s Gap).

Lastly, the third video takes us back to the glorious past of Grand Master Helio Gracie. Watch him battle it out with some of the martial arts great during the 1950s in Gracie Legends in Action 1. This new movie also include the 1975 legendary battle between Team Gracie and Team Karate.

Image Entertainment's videos could be find and purchased on various sites online like Amazon.