Sony finally announces DUALSHOCK feature for PS3

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI) officially announced today that it will be releasing a DUALSHOCK controller for Playstation 3 in North America and Europe some time in Spring 2008. DUALSHOCK, which SCE Worldwide Studios President, Phil Harrison, initially called a “last generation feature”, will be introduced inside the new DUALSHOCK 3 Wireless Controller. The new controller will inherit the basic design, as well as keep the functionality of the current Playstation 3 SIXAXIS Wireless Controller. Developers are starting to work rumble compatibility into their Playstation 3 games, and some already released games will be receiving software updates to add the feature as well. The current count of games that will feature rumble compatibility, including already released games, is approximately 65 titles.

MLG to host open game competition at E for All Expo

IDG World Expo announced today that Major League Gaming will be hosting the centrepiece gaming tournament at E for All Expo this October. Major League gaming is creating a special post-season tournament exclusively for E for All which will take place after its own championship tournament in Las Vegas the prior weekend. “We are thrilled about the opportunity to bring Major League Gaming to this high-profile event,” said Matthew Bromberg, CEO of Major League Gaming. “It’s important for all of us in the video game community to support this great new way of reaching consumers and to showcase the phenomenon of top-flight competitive gaming.” MLG's E for All tournament will feature thousands of dollars in cash prizes, plus pro players and teams battling alongside amateurs. Aside from the tournament, the event will also feature special MLG Pro appearances and an interactive session to help gamers “Get Better First” on top titles.

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights now available

If street racing games with enormous amounts of customization are your thing, then it's likely that the Juiced franchise is your thing too. And if that's the case, then you will be quite happy to know that THQ released Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights today for Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS. The new game comes packed with a fully loaded drift racing experience, a more in-depth customization mode, “brutal” pink slip races, plus, depending on the version, lets players take their entire career mode online for worldwide competition.

The game lets players experience the culture of the real Hot Import Nights tour, America's largest lifestyle custom car show. Some of the new features include the new online career mode and “Driver DNA”, which tracks gamers' personal driving traits. Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights is available for Xbox 360 for $59.99 USD/$69.99 CAD, for Playstation 2 for $39.99 USD/$44.99 CAD and for Nintendo DS for $29.99 USD and CAD. THQ also plans to release the game for Playstation 3 and PSP later this fall.

PS3 Folding@home reaches huge milestone

We've got to give it up to Playstation 3 users who are helping a major medical cause. Give yourselves a hearty pat on the back. SCEI announced today that the number of Playstation 3 users on Standford University's Folding@home program has brought the network's overall computing power of the program to more than a petaflop (the ability of a computer to do one quadrillion floating point operations per second (FLOPS). In other words, that's a lot of computing power, so much power that the milestone has never been reached on a distributed computing network before. If you are a Playstation 3 user and you aren't already running Folding@home, we highly consider you sign up. For more information on Folding@home, head over to folding.stanford.edu.