This week's Playstation Store Europe update is a big one. To start, the much awaited music application VidZone is now live together with new map packs for Killzone 2, Call of Duty: World at War and Burnout Paradise. There are also some new PSN and PSP games. Not to be outdone, the LittleBigPlanet Team ICO pack is also now available. Hit the link for the full list.

The list of first-party studios internally owned by Sony runs deep. But how huge is the entire SCEWWS group, really?

During the GDC, John Koller reveals that their internally-run first party division is just about as big as what Microsoft and Nintendo have... combined!

What are the lowly denizens of QJ looking forward to in 2009? We highlight the games coming next year (hopefully) that get us all hot under the collar.

Do you agree? Think we're raving loonies? Got suggestions of your own? Sally forth good readers, and let us know what you think.

A short two-sentence line in the latest Official PlayStation Magazine reveals that Sony's "super-sexy secret game" will be revealed at the Tokyo Games Show next month. Any bets? My money's on the Team ICO project.

 

In the comments section of a February 13 post on the Gamesblog section of UK news portal Guardian Unlimited entitled "PS3: difficult stories emerge in run up to Euro launch", an anonymous UK developer writes:

I work as a games developer, and have revealed all sorts of info on this blog. I think its all been ignored though. Readers here prefer to discuss press-releases and marketing figures. Anyway, if anyone is interested to know how serious Sony's problems are, consider this. There are virtually no PSP or PS3 games being developed in the UK.

Of course, in defense of the PSP, a quick look at upcoming PSP release dates in the UK show that there's a lot of activity leading up to mid-March. Moreover, a look at Metacritic's compiled review scores for NDS games reveal that only a handful of the top games are developed outside of Japan – something that is in stark contrast with the PSP. At least 12 of the PSP top 20 are western releases.

Kieth Stuart of Gamesblog notes that it could also be argued that when it comes to handhelds, Britain has never really been a major force.

Here's the rest of the anonymous (oddly the handle he used is "MrTummy") developer's comment:

...Nintendo had sent Wiimotes that plug into Gamecube devkits to all registered developers. Instead of forking out thousands of quid to Sony for devkits that they still weren't releasing, studios were coming up with innovative Wii ideas. Instead of training coders to program the world's most complicated Cell processor, the Gamecube team just switched to the Wii.

People can believe what they want. You can trawl the web for lists of PSP or PS3 games to get excited about. The truth is that the development community is already abandoning Sony's products, just as happened in the past to the Saturn, N64, Dreamcast, GC... All that'll be propping-up the PS3 and PSP a year from now will be some sad sports and movie fodder.

Given that Team Ico of Shadow of the Colossus fame has just announced that they're working on a PS3 project, we're pretty sure that you folks have a lot to say to MrTummy.