Presuming you're either standing in a launch line now and reading this off a mobile browsing solution (PSP, smartphone, or laptop), or you're at home waiting for a preorder to arrive: Three Speech has revealed what downloadable content will be available at the Euro-launch window PlayStation Network/Store.

Note we said "Euro-launch window". The first two in this list will be available at launch, while the rest will be released over April and May.

Genji: Days of the Blade

• Add more excitement to your medieval Japanese swordplay experience with different sets of battle dress for your four playable characters. Equip Yoshitsune with the armour of his adversaries the Heishi clan or opt for a set of Western-style metal armour. If those don’t suffice, the third pack will clothe your mighty warriors in… school uniform?

Ridge Racer 7

• Make your machine look as good as it drives with a total of 14 downloadable decal packs arriving throughout March and April. Will your machine bear the Katamari Damacy livery or the classic PAC-MAN and XEVIOUS decals? This is your chance to customise your machine in the most distinctive way and show it off online!
• Or will you enter a special downloadable race event? Test your skills against a jet-black ANGELUS in a Quad Battle event at Seaside Route 765, take on the Xevious army in a special race event at Downtown Rave City, or get behind the wheel of a fully-customised ABEILLE for a Duel event at Laketop Parkway. With 25 special event packs available in April and May, a visit to PSN is a must for serious drift race-heads.

MotorStorm

• Any PS3 owner playing MotorStorm online will receive Time Trial Mode automatically – you won’t even need to download this one from the PLAYSTATION Store. Take any vehicle out on the track of your choice and go hell for leather to lay down the quickest lap time. You can race against ghost vehicles of your previous efforts, other players’ times and the best attempts from the MotorStorm development team – and then upload your best times to the global online rankings. In addition, more tracks, vehicles and game modes will be available later in the month, and thereafter on a regular basis.

Resistance: Fall of Man

• Download two new playable maps: Westmorland and Camborn. Take the battle against the Chimera to new areas of England: create carnage in the autumn splendour of Camborn with bullets, then leave blood trails in the fresh snowfall of hilly, sniper-friendly Westmorland. All multiplayer game types are fully playable on these stunning new landscapes.

The infamous killer crab you guys have encountered in Genji: Days of the Blade might be a bit of a turn off for some of you. Face it. Giant crabs in feudal Japan? Spare us from all the ironies, but hey!, it does make an interesting cultural allusion to their history and folklore.

Anyways, finally some light is shed on why this crabby baddie actually made it to the game. Game producer Yoshiki Okamoto just confessed of a little grudge he has against the crustaceans. Via a translator, here's what the big guy's got to say:

Okamoto is allergic to crabs and that's the reason why, if you find its weak point, you can kill it with one blow. It's Okamoto's way of defeating the crab he hates.

With that said, I'm craving for a Krabby Patty. The full interview with Okamoto can be found in the latest issue of PSM3, so you guys might want to check it out. (Note to self - Lesson learned: being part of game development allows you to seek revenge on your allergies.)

If you are one of those people who easily get confused with a game's multiple saves, you've probably encountered the minor glitch found in Game Republic's Genji: Days of the Blade back in November last year. The bug forces players to start the game from scratch as it doesn't save the vital keys activated during the game's earlier portions.

Now, a couple of months after, online site Wired mentions that one of their readers offered an explanation about this glitch. Take note that this isn't just any reader as the guy claims to be a part of the Genji 2 testing team. His explanation reads:

The bug isn't really a bug anyway, or at least a serious bug. It's more graphics than anything else. What happens is the body the key is on disappears, but the key is very much still there. The prompt remains if anyone would actually go to where the body once was.

The reader then went on to explain that this minor problem was actually discovered early in the testing cycle. However, their team had to insert the code back because of the way Shizuka's weapon was given to the user.

So there. What we suggest for you now is to turn on your PS3, play Genji, and then tell us if this one works.

What's it like to have a launch title? Yoshiki Okamoto, Game Republic founder, divulges his experience with Genji: Days of the Blade in an interview with Kikizo.

"Launch games are more difficult because we cannot change the release date. There's always the difficulty that it's a new hardware and not knowing what the full capacity of the hardware is going to be."

Genji: Days of the Blade was originally a PS2 title, supposedly, but they decided later on to port it over to the PS3 instead. Certainly, there were much to be done given this change. After all, it wasn't long before they realized that the work that had been done for the PS2 version just wasn't cut out for the PS3's technology.

"We wanted to give people great graphics that would say, 'Yes, this is PlayStation 3. We had to give a little bit up from the gameplay. That was really difficult from the [perspective of] balance."

But apparently, that wasn't the only problem that they will be facing. When Sony announced that they will not be continuing with the rumble from the SIXAXIS, they knew that there will be something lost. However, fortunately for them, the game was already in production when the tilt-sensing features were revealed. So, "The game design was not thought out with the SIXAXIS in mind. Yes, we did lose something but we probably gained a lot more," muses Okamoto.

For the PAL version of the game, what gamers can expect is that there will be a bigger number of languages, totaling 11, as well as the reduced numbers of bugs.

Okamoto is confident that their team has succeeded in showing off the power of the PS3, tip of the iceberg as it may be. And as what all other optimists say about the PS3's technology, "If this is what we can do at launch, think about what is possible in the following years."

Oh, believe us. We're definitely thinking about it.

The advantage of being asked to, or taking the initiative to, create a launch title is that not only do you have that opportunity to come to terms with a console's potential (despite, of course, the time pressure to make it to launch), you also have a product to show for it.

For Yoshiki Okamoto and Game Republic, it's Genji: Days of the Blade. And, reflecting on their experiences in making a PS3 launch title, Okamoto tells Pro-G that the team's next game will use even more of the PS3's latent power.

"If Genji shows what we can achieve with a launch title then think what we will be able to do in the years to come, when we are harnessing the true power of PlayStation 3," he says. This next title should see signs of life next year and use Genji's engine. It won't be a sequel to Days of the Blade, though - Days of the Blade is the last Genji game. No word on whether it'll spin off from the Genji plot (starting a new continuity in the same universe) or feature an all-new universe together.

We mentioned yesterday that Sony Japan will be updating its roster of PSOne games to be played on the PSP. As we all know, these titles can be accessed via the PlayStation Store. Moreover, the online store will not be called that if it doesn't cater to PS3 titles too.

With that said, gaming site Kotaku has a heads up for everybody about future microtransactions for Genji: Days of the Blade and Blast Factor. Accordingly, Genji will be getting a costume pack while the other download, which is for Blast Factor, involves a "Co-op Play Download Pack." According to reports, the said costume pack will be readily available for free for a limited time in the Japanese market when the game launches on December 31.

As of now, there is still no available information regarding the date they will go live as well as price points. Genji was developed by Game Republic and is about the historical battles in the feudal days in Japan while Blast Factor is a download-only shooter by Bluepoint Games.

Have you checked the PlayStation Store recently? Santa's little elves have an early Christmas gift waiting for you guys. Despite having only some mild activity in the online store for the past couple of weeks, there's now some new downloadable content for everyone to enjoy.

Currently, I haven't been able to check the Store yet. Before I left home this morning, all I got were session timeouts (stupid connection!). Supposedly, the games will be up by today, and Sony hasn't even stated what time they'll go live. You guys can check for yourselves.

The games available by today are a demo and two downloadable games. Firstly, the demo is free, setting you back by 593MB of hard drive space. It's of Genji: Days of the Blade. While the game has already been out in North America, some of you guys who still haven't gotten your hands on a copy of the game yet now have a chance to take a crack at it. Maybe the demo would help you decide whether to get the game or not.

The other two downloadable content would be Lemmings 2 and Go! Sudoku 2. The former will cost you US$ 5.99 and would require 270MB. It'll have 1080p support, and bundle some 40 new levels and added visual magic. Go! Sudoku 2, on the other hand, will be free (89MB for the initial download). Or  at least, the first level is. Every level after that will set you back with a US$ 2.99 tag and take up 100KB.

Anyways, I'm just hoping that the Genji demo won't be as short as the Blast Factor demo. Man was that uber short. Three or so levels into the demo and I was like "Decontamination stopped?! What the?! I've seen a trailer of this game that's longer than this!" Talk about being a tease. Hope the Genji one isn't just as short...

Despite of some bug problems, Genji: Days of the Blade still stands to be one of the more exciting games to be launched to the PS3. And while those from North America have been enjoying this game for almost a month now, the Japanese market still has quite a bit of waiting to do.

But nonetheless, to get them ready for the game, and to get those of you already playing the game to be more armed, we have here for you several tips that will get you surviving those lethal fighting rounds. Without breaking a sweat.

Oh, and we also have the Combat tutorial vid right here, so just feel free to download it. There's always room to learn something new. Meanwhile, here are the tips.

Don't forget to block: Sounds basic and simple enough, right? Well, that's what makes things more often overlooked. Remember, this game is not "just a button masher". Block those moves off. What happens if you don't? You die. Basic and simple enough.

Dodging: The best time to apply this is when you're in a crowd, or when you're trying to avoid those nasty punches coming your way. This is said to be more effective than blocking (which is often forgotten).

Character Swapping: There are four characters in the game, with each of them having their own respective powers and advantages. So, it would be most beneficial to you if choose the character that is suited best for that particular situation. Don't hesitate to get to know each character, as they all have something interesting to bring into the game.

Download: [Genji: Combat vid]

More tips after the jump!

And here we go with the prettiness which is Genji: Days of the Blade. Developed by Game Republic for the PlayStation 3, this title was just released in North America this month, but is yet to see its Japanese debut which won't be until December 31.

Loosely based on The Tale of the Heike, Days of the Blade takes place three years after its predecessor, and once again, Yoshitsune and Benkei find themselves up against the newly-restored Heishi army. The party of heroes gets a boost though, as this time around, they are joined by Shizuka and Buson in fending off the opposition's unholy magic and soldiers who turn into demons.

So for those who are wondering if this title would be worth picking up from the store, here's a video which shows the first ten minutes of the game. Hopefully, this would give players an idea if Genji is their cup of tea.

Download: [First ten minutes of Genji: Days of the Blade]

There are two things bugs do for video games. They can either allow a player to access something not normally available to gamers provided they do specific requirements or completely rip the fun out of your gaming heart. This story isn't about the first one by the way, so you know what to expect.

According to Wired, there's a bad glitch in Game Republic's Genji: Days of the Blade that can force you to start the game from scratch if you don't have multiple saves. A little over two hours into the game, you're supposed to find a key to get into a building, and then activate two switches on the roof of said building to move forward.

The problem is, you can't exactly do any of that if the key doesn't appear, and that's the bug that's currently a part of the game.

If you don't have a saved game from an earlier portion of Genji, you've basically given up a couple of hours of your life for a bug. If you do have one, you're still going to have to pray that the item shows up where and when it's supposed to. All in all, sounds like your typical blind date actually, so you just have to deal with it until something goes right, or until the developer fixes the bug for us and Sony lets us download a patch for free.