Yesterday's release of the Grand Theft Auto IV trailer was very much anticipated. Avid GTA fans will have noticed that the release brought down Rockstar's website, as well as other large gaming sites such as GameTrailers and GameVideos. Granted, our servers were a little loaded and some people couldn't get through, but luckily we found a YouTube video of the trailer just in time to save you guys from the awful wait.

So what came of this trailer? Well, it was amazing graphically, representing the city of New York in amazing detail. However, the developers at Rockstar Games have decided to keep hush about the trailer and have not enlightened us on anything we had the pleasure of viewing.

Luckily the internet has come to the rescue, with the trailer picked to pieces by eagle-eyed fans. In order to prevent confusion we'll only post the fact and let you speculate amongst yourselves! Here's what the trailer tells us:

• GTA IV is based loosely on New York, but is in fact the Liberty City (maybe the state, not just the city) you remember from GTA III. You can find the words "Liberty City" plastered on a docked tanker in the trailer, a ferry and the infamous "LCPD" squad cars in the trailer.
• The vehicles look post-2000, including BMW and sports car lookalikes
• GTA IV ditches the old Renderware engine for Rockstar Games' superior Table Tennis RAGE engine. A Rockstar representative told Gamespot: "We can confirm that all footage in the trailer was captured directly from 720p gameplay running real time in our Rage engine on a next-gen gaming console."
• An in-game ad on the trailer shows a sign which says "Visit Vice City - $300". Is this evidence that we will be able to visit the city or just a gimmick? For the next-generation GTA, we'd bet on it being the former. Will it resemble the PS2/PSP Vice City?
  
• Birds, pedestrians and drivers have advanced physics in the trailer, for example, a driver can be seen adjusting a rear view mirror. It's the small things that count.
  
• Finally, will the Russian chap be the main protagonist?

All of these points can be confirmed by watching the trailer, however we suggest that you view the HD trailer on Rockstar's website rather than the YouTube version if you want to be able to see all of these. Rockstar estimates that GTA IV will be shipped on October 19 for both Xbox 360 and PS3.

 

We already told you that PS3s weren't doing too well on eBay on the night of the UK launch, but for the touts it seems to have gotten worse instead of better. This claim was made two hours before the UK launch of the PS3 and most of the QJ offices expected prices to rise as UK gamers actually got their £400 consoles in their hands. Apparently, we were wrong. Prices actually appear to have dropped since our last report.

Despite UK PS3 sales hitting a console record of 165,000 units in one weekend, it appears that Sony's stocks were in fact about right for the demand of the console, and they didn't sell out like the touts expected them to. We can all take a valuable lesson from this and of course, profit from it. Sell-outs don't necessarily mean high sales. The Wii sold out in the UK, but it still sold less on launch weekend than the PS3. Although this may be down to the traditional British shopping ideology: buy the brand you trust.

And yes, we know you're just dying to ask: "What's in it for me?" Well, about now you can pick up a PS3 on eBay.co.uk for around £ 380, that's £ 30 less than the bargain we showed you yesterday and if you search around you may be able to find one even cheaper.

Wii owners are delighted with the fact that many more Wii consoles have been sold than PS3s worldwide, with the small console from Nintendo steadily catching up with the Xbox 360.

However, although the cheaper console may have prevailed in total units sold, perhaps due to it's price, it does seem that the PS3 has been more eagerly-awaited, with more people pre-ordering Sony's console.

Here's the confirmation from New Zealand, with Dick Smith merchandise manager James Cunnold claiming that "[PS3] pre-orders are five times that of Nintendo Wii," as well as going above any pre-orders received for the original Playstation 1, 2, or the Xbox 360.

The New Zealand Herald has dubbed the PS3 a '$1200 toy', but sales figures for the console prove it's not just a toy: it's a complete home entertainment system.

Not all is good down under though, as New Zealanders will have to wait until Monday 26th March before 9 alleged 'launch titles' for the console are released, and some reports claim a shortage of Dual Shock 3 controllers, although Sony will have shipped more by next week.

 

If you live in the U.K. and haven't bought a PS3 yet, luckily for you we have stumbled upon the (seemingly) best U.K. PlayStation 3 deal to hit the internet so far from DVD.co.uk which offers a 60GB PS3 unit for just £ 409.99. Yep, this is the same PS3 you'll get from other popular U.K. choices such as Amazon, GAME, and Gamestation for £ 424.99 plus delivery charges.

This deal sounds too good to be true considering retailers such as HMV expect you to fork out the cash for a PSP as well as a PS3, but reviews of the site show that it is legitimate, it delivers fast, and has competitive prices. If you want a PS3 and live in the U.K., make sure you get it from the retailer with cheapest prices. The only place cheaper than this for a PS3 is probably eBay...if you're willing to take the risk.

 

The PS3's launch in Europe has been hailed by Gamestation as a "success", and although eBay sales aren't going down amazingly well at the moment, what Sony's PS3 lacks in auction fever it makes up in curing diseases all over the world. That's right, we aren't talking about a game like Call of Duty - we're talking about the PS3's involvement in curing Alzheimer's disease with Stanford University's Folding@Home project.

You've probably seen our call for PS3 users to unite and join the QJ.Net Folding@Home Team, but basically what it does is use your PS3's idle CPU while investigating protein folding which has been thought to be the root of diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, cystic fibrosis, Huntington's Disease, and some types of cancer. You may ask why we're posting this once again, but this isn't just an appeal to ask you to join.

The PS3 has already made a significant impact on the Folding@Home, with PS3s providing 346 Teraflops of their CPU power, close to triple of what all Windows PCs running the program and 100 more TFLOPs than Windows, Mac, Linux, GPU, and other Operating Systems put together. We would like to thank everyone on the QJ.Net Folding@Home team who have joined since our last post and have helped the PS3 achieve this great feat. QJ's Folding@Home team stats can be viewed here.

 

So as you can see, the PS3 really is making a difference. You may think that your PS3 won't be responsible for curing a disease, but think about it: your PS3 has over 10 times the TFLOPS (processing power) of the average computer - put it to good use. Who knows, the PS3 could be the thing that cures a disease such as Alzheimer’s once and for all. Even if you don't have a PS3 yet, it's quite cool to know that a console you support is giving something back to the world.

If you have just got a PS3 from Europe or another part of the world and would like to donate your processing power to a good cause, click here to learn more about how to join the QJ.Net Folding@Home team. Even if you don't have your PS3 yet, you can download the Folding@Home application to your PC too, it just won't be as effective as the Cell-powered PS3. But you're still helping.

 

Of course, whenever a new console launches the eBay pirates come out in force, selling consoles for sometimes twice what they have paid for them. However, there appears to have been a bit of a slowdown on eBay with the imminent UK release of the PS3. The console is due for release in two hours (12 a.m. GMT) from this article being written, and usually this would be the time when all budding entrepreneurs would be out in force. But...the consoles are actually selling for less than their retail prices.

Some are going for £425 + delivery (retail price), but others with only minutes to go are hovering around £300, with one exception being a person who gave a £600 on a PS3. The extreme example in the screenshot shows 10 PS3's being sold for £4,000, and we can tell you that they eventually sold for £4,475.00 including delivery which comes to £447.5 each. Now, when you add the eBay fees which will be quite a lot for an item of £4,000+; the seller is actually making a loss on their PS3s.

As a UK gamer myself I am quite interested in these stats and will be on hand tomorrow to check on the progress of this. I also want to see what happens with the eBay listings when the PS3s finally reach buyers hands. Expect an update from us.

 

Now this may seems like an overambitious claim but the Blu-ray Association which includes high flying companies from the world of business such as Sony, Dell, Apple and Warner Bros. to name a few, today told worldwide media that they were aiming to replace the DVD storage format within three years. Frank Simonis, the Blu-ray Disc Association's European chairman, said "within three years it will just be Blu-ray," doubting the credibility of the BRA's arch-rival: HD-DVD.

Of course, Blu-ray is currently in the lead when you count the amount of players that have been sold as Sony's PS3 comes fully-equipped with a Blu-ray player, whereas HD-DVD doesn't have the advantage of console support, although an attachment can be purchased for Microsoft's Xbox 360. Sony Computer Entertainment said it had sold over 1.84 million PS3s in Japan and North America and that one million PS3s are ready for launch next week in Europe, giving Blu-ray a bit head start.

Here's where it gets interesting: the big guns behind HD-DVD claim Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD by five to one because the technology is being sold in the PS3, and that movie sales are still level; however 20th Century Fox claim that weekly Blu-ray film sales are three times higher than that of the HD-DVD format.

At the CeBIT technology trade show Sony reiterated its target to have sold six million PS3 game consoles by the end of the year which will once again add to the Blu-ray sales figure, but to get rid of standard DVDs in just three years is a very big claim. Can they do it? Tell us your view in the comments!

It's fair to say that critics of Sony and the PS3 aren't few and far between, and at the moment it appears to be a bit of a "marmite" affair with the console - you either love it or hate it.

This time Epic Games VP Mark Rein has stepped out into the spotlight to take on critics of Sony, saying "Sony has a very, very strong brand, so in my opinion, they're still the one to beat." He went on the explain about the other next-generation consoles strengths, and why he thinks Sony are still in first place.

The Wii is an impressive piece of hardware, but as you get the visually more impressive games coming out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as the marketing dollars get turned up to support the larger quantities of machines, with potential price drops and titles like Singstar which appeal to the larger market... Those machines will ignite, they'll take off, and they'll sell just fine.

Rein, perhaps taking some of his inspiration from Phil Harrison's Keynote speech at GDC 2007, also commented on PlayStation home, praising Sony for having "some pretty cool stuff coming."

If any critics are reading this then you may want to consider something which Rein pointed out - people just seem to want to take a smack at [Sony] because they're the leader.

From a completely unbiased point of view, we'd have to agree that Sony is still the one to beat for both Microsoft and Nintendo. Although other consoles may be selling faster, this could just be due to the price of the PS3, which will go down with time. We also have to remember that the PS2 was the best selling console last generation, so until the next next-generation consoles come out, Microsoft and Nintendo are after Sony blood silicone.

Sony's Phil Harrison doesn't take much of a break on the PR side of things, and today the Sony front man is back again with another bold statement to make potential PS3 owners think about their choice of next-gen console, as according to Harrison the "PS3 will last 10 years."

The Blu-ray player on the PS3 seems to be it's shining light and it's darkest area when it comes to features, although it allows the playback of games and movies holding up to 50GB dual-layer, it was also the component behind the delay of the PS3's European launch.

Whilst Europeans may have waited quite a long time for their shiny black consoles, Harrison has put himself back in the spotlight once again to assure us that this blu-ray feature will allow the PS3 to last a decade. He also defends the PS3's price, stating:

The fact that we could also adopt the pre-eminent next-generation movie format into PS3 was an added bonus, not an added cost, those are the decisions that are going to propel PlayStation 3 to be a platform that lasts for ten years, like we've seen with PS1 and PS2.

We have to agree that Blu-ray functionality has had and always will have a large impact on PS3 sales, but will the $600 console last a decade with the wear and tear of the average household and the price of Blu-ray players on their way down? Let us know your views in the comments. Oh, remember to hang around QJ's PS3 blog on 7th March, when Harrison will give his GDC Keynote speech.

We're treating this rumour with a bit of skepticism, but user DevelopersHeart from the neoseeker forums claims to have keynote details from Phil Harrison's keynote speech at the Games Developer Conference which starts tomorrow in San Francisco.

The speech by Harrison is supposed to be happening on Wednesday, March 7, and according to these keynote details will include a lot of announcements by Sony Computer Entertainment, so lets run through them.

One of the first things we noticed was that there will be a new firmware update for North America, Japan, and Asia, with European PS3's coming pre-loaded with this latest firmware update. Here are the details of the update:

• More refined PS Store front end
• Playstation Network integrity enhanced
• Wallpapers from pictures
• Ability to change background colors
• Sony Connect Store for music and movies added to the PS Store; hundreds of trailers/full films/song videos and mp3s available for download
• Playstation Card option in PS Store enabled
• Playstation Lifestyle - Similar to Myspace/Youtube; user generated content and experiences are the key and more

It is alleged that the emotion chips which won't be present in European PS3's on launch will also be removed for North America and Japan in April to reduce costs, leaving all PS3s' running backwards compatibility using software emulation. The benefit of this will be the ability to upscale selected PSone/PS2 games to 1080i/720p.

There'll also be an influx of new content available on the PS Store on March 8, including:

• Tekken 6 trailer
• Lair demo & trailer
• Rainbow Six: Vegas demo
• EA: Skate trailer
• Battlefield Bad Company trailer
• Warhawk demo
• Virtua Fighter 5 demo
• Virtua Tennis 3 demo & trailer
• GRAW 2 trailer
• Mortal Kombat 2 game
• Killzone trailer, with a demo scheduled for May 2007.

While this extensive list cannot be confirmed, it does seem to sound quite legitimate and has been reported on all over the internet. We won't however know whether any of this is true until the GDC speech by Harrison on March 7, so stay tuned to QJ throughout GDC for the latest news!