The CES Street Fighter IV (PS3, 360) Showdown draws near and the competing publishers are making sure that they own at the epic battle. The three participating publishing giants, Microsoft, Sony, and Capcom are now picking gamers to represent them, so do you want to be on their team? Learn how in the full article.

Epic console war to the nth power! Well, epic console war plus Capcom. At next year's CES, Capcom, Microsoft, and Sony will be duking it out in a Street Fighter IV tournament. Epic way to start the New Year. More details in the full article.

The Xbox 360's getting really big in Japan lately. Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg even remarked recently that third-parties are shifting "from the PlayStation brand to [the] Xbox 360." And what does Sony have to say about that? More entertaining trash talk coming your way after the link.

Aaron Greenberg of the Xbox 360 team lampooned Sony earlier this month, saying how slow they are in delivering their products. He isn't through yet though. In the latest Major Nelson podcast, he states that Sony has "a history of over-promising and under-delivering." Ouch. More in the full article.

If you're all excited about DICE's upcoming environment-bustin' FPS Battlefield: Bad Company ( Sony PlayStation 3 , Microsoft Xbox 360), there's some good news to share with you. Senior producer Carl Magnum has revealed in a recent interview that they'll come out with it real soon. How soon? Find out in the full article after the jump.

It's certainly bad enough that the PS3 version of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360, PS3) won't be getting the episodic downloadable content promised on the Xbox 360 release of the game. To complicate things a bit further, Microsoft's Vice President of Interactive Entertainment Don Mattrick mentioned that the multiplayer elements of the game might even possibly be an Xbox 360 exclusive. Find out more about the upcoming title's different features in the full article.

(Editor's Note: Epicness was never this awesome!)

It's another great week again! We have quite a lot of reasons why we're celebrating, and not least of them all is the fact that QuickJump QuickPeek's finally hit its 30th edition!

Let's pop them corks and let the champaign flow. Everyone's got a reason to party this weekend!

*Originally posted Jan 19, 2008 at 02:49PM

News in the recent days that Sony's Blu-ray format has secured an exclusive deal with giant retailer target may prove to be half true according to a recent post by Major Nelson, who was able to have a few words with the HD-DVD people in the Comic-Con.

"It turns out that the Target 'exclusive' for Blu Ray is *not* an exclusive," says Major Nelson. "Sony bought some end aisle placement (normal in retail) and just called it exclusive. Target WILL continue to carry HD DVD products. I am told to expect a comment from Target next week."

Looks like there's no reason for HD-DVD supporters to panic just yet. In any case, the truth should come out in a week or so. We'll update you as official announcements are made so keep it right here.

In case you're not aware, there's an iTunes rankings for game podcasts. Now, Europe-based FM-broadcast gaming radio show One Life Left has been reported to top the iTunes rankings, even besting established podcasts such as that of gaming site 1UP and Microsoft's Major Nelson.

One Life Left is broadcasted on Resonance FM which, by the way, is funded by London's Arts Council. The program is presented by "gaming miscreants" Ste Curran and Robert Howells with newsreader Ann Scantlebury. Over a dozen British industry veterans contribute to One Life Left regularly.

In its 33 weeks of existence, this is actually the first time that One Life Left has topped the iTunes charts. The latest issue will be titled "The Danger of Words" and will feature bits about the Kotaku-Sony hoopla over PlayStation Home (recently revealed at the Game Developers Conference 2007), GTA IV, Crackdown, GRAW 2, and even travel and telephones.

N'gai Croal notes in his blog that Sony should address the problem of them not having an active presence in the realm of blogging. He cites Ozymandias (Andre Virgnaud) and other Microsoft bloggers like Major Nelson, Gamerscore, and Game Tycoon as a nice example Microsoft reaching out and making a connection with the citizens of the internet.

Although Ozymandias' motives are, as N'gai Croal puts it, "hilariously transparent" Ozymandias' blog does well to bash anything and everything Sony. Furthermore it provides that consumer to company link that Microsoft needs.

N'gai notes that Sony fails at giving consumers information that they really need, straight from the company they purchased or acquired the products from. For example he says that when PS3 firmware updates are released, nothing in the download process really explains what the updates to. Yes, the updates page on the official Sony site gets updated from time to time, but it's nothing as powerful, reassuring, and as effective as say, a Major Nelson blog update. Often times people will have to go to sites like like QJ, or at NeoGAF for immediate word on the matter.

Remember PS3 Firmware Update v1.3?

The gap is there. A Sony "fan-boy" would sooner trust an obscure post by 0okm or a quick how-to from Pranav, than wait for the Sony site to update. A Microsoft "xbot" will go to Major Nelson's blog. Big gap right there.

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