The US PlayStation Network update for this week is now available. And yes, finally, the Mercenaries 2 demo is live - they probably got stuck in traffic along the way - as well as the demo for Fracture. PSP owners also get two downloadable titles this week, both from D3 Publisher: PQ and Cube.

If you missed going to the recent 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show, then here's a chance for you to catch up on some of the great events that happened during the show. Jeff Rubenstein, Social Media Manager on the PlayStation Blog, was kind enough to compile these questions and answer the many queries brought up by the PlayStation fans.

Read more in the full article after the jump!

(Editor's Note: Sleigh bells ring; are you list'ning? From here on out, all QuickPeek editions will start giving thanks to our weekly tipsters! Yay!)

It's QuickPeek 23! After Black Friday and all those festivities (ooh, and last week's QuickPeek too, of course - Optimus Prime FTW!), we're now moving into the Christmas season. Ole Saint Nick's already stuffed a bit of gaming goodness down the QJ.NET chimney, and here we are, ready to give you the lowdown for the week! Enjoy!

(Editor's Note: Are your wallets feeling cobwebbed inside lately? Not surprising - it's raining game releases all week like white on rice. And that's across all consoles, across all platforms - just the way we like it!)

Whew! Too many games, too little time! QuickJump QuickPeek 21 is rounding up news from this week - "this week" here, A.K.A. "Assassin's Galaxy Crysis Ops+ week". Ok, that's probably forcing it. Let's just let it slide for now, shall we? From last week's QuickPeek, let's roll out!

While not every QJ reader pays the bills in their home, we all know that "power" is a word firmly entrenched in gaming vocabulary. Today, we won't be talking about the graphical powers of the PS3, but another power. It's the power that Sony's console eats up, and it seems to be a hefty chunk larger than the the other consoles in the market.

According to the Digital Displacement blog, it's a power-hungry piece of machinery. When kept on standby in the XMB, the PS3 used up 185 to 205 watts compared to the Xbox 360's 145 watt usage or the Wii's 15-20 watt usage when kept on their dashboard or home menu. Watt usage during gameplay varied with the game, but their healthy estimate lay anywhere from 185 to 205 watts. Lastly, playing a Blu-Ray DVD also ate up 205 watts.

What does this have to do with gaming, you might ask? In addition to our concerns about how much more your electricity bill will be each month, and how a large base of gaming consoles (and other forms of tech) will increase the need for power stations to supply adequate electricity, Digital Displacement poses a rather poignant question:

Certainly the graphics power of the next-gen consoles is awesome to behold, but when we look back to the humble Playstation and its minuscule 6 watts of power consumption during gaming, you have to wonder: are we seeing comparable increases in graphics performance to match up with 35-fold increase in power consumption? And, perhaps more importantly, are games 35 times more fun to play?

We'd actually kind of settle for at least 10 times more fun, but that doesn't really sound possible these days, does it?

It was just a while ago when we all agreed that Microsoft will definitely issue statements regarding its rival companies. And now here goes the mighty corporation again. This time, it's Xbox Live Director of Technical Strategy Andre Vrignaud's turn to comment on the apparent problems the PS3 is having with certain HDTV units.

"It appears there's no internal hardware scaler in the PS3. As reported, it appears the PS3 is unable to output a consistent signal to your TV based upon your desired selection," wrote Vrignaud in his Ozymandias blog. The official even claimed that he wanted to play Resistance in 1080i (He has a PS3?).

Unfortunately, the console drops down to a lower-common denominator of 480p, in case the game doesn't support it. Vrignaud continued that he was prompted to quit, go to the dashboard, change the PS3's resolution to 720p and then relaunch the game.

Also, according to Vrignaud, older HDTV doesn't support 720p, just 480i/480p and 1080i. So owners of the said units are forced to play in 480i/p because they are unable to scale the output to 1080i. "This smells of the console being rushed to market, and I'm not holding out any hopes for any significant fix. It's bad, and feels like something Sony would have fixed if possible," said Vrignaud.

No, hell didn't just freeze over, and neither did the Big 3 decide to give up on their plans for world domination and come together for a new console. It's just me imagining things, and wondering what it would be like if Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft decided to make a console together. Now obviously, I won't go imagining about things which they would do. Rather, it's a list of good things which can be borrowed from each of the three next-gen consoles to make a "super-uber-kickass next-gen console."

Firstly, let's talk about the Xbox 360, since it's the only one out yet. Created by Microsoft to be a worthy successor to it's moderately-successful Xbox, the Xbox 360 does hold its own against the offerings from Nintendo and Sony. Perhaps, it's the cool "outspoken" looks, which tend to grow on you, or maybe, it's the "be-good" attitude from Microsoft this generation. Whatever it is, the Xbox 360 does have a few things which can be a worthy addition to any console in the market.

The Wii-Play-Box awaits after the jump!

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Yes, he's back. The bald-headed legend and Sony's president of Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison has given us a sneak preview of the PS3's Dashboard and Browser. Lets start with the dashboard. Phil Harrison described the PS3's dashboard as in development, and so instead of giving us a complete walkthrough, all we get is an in-depth look at the photo browser. While this may seem like one of the simpler PS3 features, the true power of the Cell processor and a 1080p display (HD) can be seen with the manipulation of photos from their ordinary 2D state, much like you see a screensaver on your PC, to a 3D screensaver where the photos are scattered across the screen like photos falling from an album. Pretty neat huh?

The dashboard does look rather like the XMB from Sony's PSP, only with more options and a larger HD display. It has obviously been designed to be native to other Sony product users for easy use, rewarding portable Playstation fans too. The photo image settings are reminiscent of the PSPs video settings display, a translucent menu that does not interrupt what you are viewing but takes up a small portion of the screen with a wide variety of options.

Not, lets get to the juicy part: the PS3's web browser. The feature that Phil Harrison seems most impressed about is the ability for multiple windows to be open at the same time, which many second-generation web browser users refer to as tabs. This may seem like a rather standard feature but the PS3's web browser does have more than your standard Firefox browser.

Sony have opened up the ability tabs- multiple windows can be viewed all at the same time on one screen, seeing all of your pages at once. He demonstrated this by having the two Sony websites and the Google homepage open all at once. As Harris ion said, the browser is an important part to the PS3 as it is where "The games and the community merge."

He also stated that the dashboard will be constantly updated with new features for every component- from the photo viewer to the web browser, so expect to see more details on the PS3's dashboard in the future. Watch the video but be careful - Harrison does push his luck with a few cheesy jokes at the beginning.

What follows are three letters from an imaginary gamer (actually he lurks in most of our hearts) to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft asking them for things that we really deserve to know the answers to, a few suggestions, and some general observations on their behavior of late.

Read the full article after the jump!