The PSP is warming up to me again with many of the newer games that are appearing from Asia. From Loco Roco now to Patapon, a lovely, hyper-stylish title where you take on the role of God to the Patapon. You lead their charges fighting evil invaders via drum-based patterns and watch as little black squigglies attack and kill out of control red squirmies which sometimes resemble dragons, sometimes not. Now Sony, what is going on with Limbo!!!?!?!

System3 CEO Mark Cale recently sat down with PALGN to talk a little about their upcoming DS, Wii and PSP titles Leaderboard, California Games and Ferrari Challenge. Essentially remakes of retro Commodore 64 titles, System3 is enhancing the visuals and game play of these classic titles and bringing them to everyones favorite handheld, the Nintendo DS (and not everyones favorite, the Sony PSP). Some of the enhancements to California Games, one of my most favorite games EVAR, is the addition of online multiplayer! A long-desired feature of the arcade elite of yesterday. The DS version will have four player multiplayer, with up to 8 players being able to shred head to head on the PSP

PALGN: You touched on California Games, which was such a massive hit back in the day, can you tell us a little bit about how the modern day remake is going to be handled?

Mark Cale: We’re re-skinning the game, bringing it up to date having the original available to play, which is the total 64 version, not emulated but totally redone from scratch, but using the exact 64 animations and positions as well as generally re-skinning, bringing it totally up to date with the look, the feel and the sound and then to merge we’ve got the original character in the new re-skinned background, that withstands the test of time. California Games however withstands the test of time in terms of being a sports title and a great, fun title to play against your friends. Unfortunately, the one disadvantage it has is that it that it only ever had six events. So, how do we get over that? Well, the simple answer for us is that, what you do is you have your six events, which if you recall were the surfing, the BMX, the Frisbee, the Keepy Uppy, half pipe and rollerblading. Once you compete in these events, if you get a gold medal in one of the events, it unlocks Summer Games 1 and 2, and you are then chosen the represent your country, and then you represent your country playing Summer Games 1 and 2, so what it does is that it actually unlocks a whole sort of a game series, instead of giving you just six events, you’ve now got twenty two events.

Read more: Mark Cale talks California Games

Ah how the mighty have fallen. If anyone was ever interested in what a (rumored) corporate power grab from a mother company to it’s prodigal son would produce, this is it. Rockstar Games has announced the release of their web-based music sampling and creation toy, Beaterator, for the PSP, complete with a celebrity name attached, that being hot (as in mainstream hot) Timbaland. No word on if the beats provided by Timbaland will feature any obscure Finnish demo scene samples.

Press release after the jump..

Read more of “Rockstar Games announces Beaterator PSP featuring Timbaland“

Seems we were so excited to actually have a reason to use our PSP again that we might have jumped the gun on our previous post saying Gish PSP was on it’s way. Ignoring the DVDboxoffice and Amazon listings, some rumors (read: forum posts) are stating that the deal for the PSP version of Gish fell through at the last minute, after sales had already sent out the announcements to a few retailers.

Boo. With no official announcement (yet) we can only just wait and see, but, here’s to hoping we can get Gish on a handheld console soon (preferably the DS).

Read more: Gish coming for the PSP, or not? (Thanks Simon!)

Old but what the hell, I just found out that indie games darling Gish is heading to the PSP, bringing it’s dark and ultra-stylish art direction to a slowly dying platform. I’ve heard rumors all around that Sony is approaching high quality indie developers to bring their games to the PSP, which may be a smart move on their part, considering the few who still are interested in the PSP are homebrewers and indie developers. Gish is a unique 2D side-scrolling title, completely physics-based and featuring a Tim Burton-esque meets Japanese animation style ball of tar, rolling around and causing havoc. Congrats to the folks behind Gish!

Read more: Gish | Gish for PSP @ DVDboxoffice

Nearing a year after the closure of Rockstar Vienna, who was rumored to be developing Manhunt 2 for the PS2 before their sudden closure, Rockstar Games has announced Manhunt 2 for the PS2, PSP and (shock!) Wii! Not that anyone still cares about the Manhunt license or anything, the exciting news here is that Rockstar is making a go at a Nintendo Wii title! If anyone was doubting that the big N was trying to attract the 3rd parties, eat up a bit of that piping hot crow. Granted, I’d rather have a GTA Wii or Max Payne Wii, but who knows, if things work out well for Manhunt 2 Wii, guaranteed we’ll see more Rockstar titles appearing on the platform. Rockstar Games also went on to say that Rockstar London is developing the PS2 version, Rockstar Leeds the PSP and Rockstar Toronto the Wii version, with of course, Rockstar North overseeing all three. Look for all 3 versions appearing this Summer.

Read more: Manhunt 2 announced for PS2, PSP and Wii

Via the latest issue of Famitsu, the only gaming magazine that matters in Japan, Square Enix has confirmed they are developing Final Fantasy Anniversary Edition, containing remakes of Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II. Both editions will see the addition of new content, such as new dungeons, a monster database and an Amano gallery mode, though no word yes on if there will be any graphical updates. The title will be out sometime in 2007 for the Sony PSP, followed by the usual porting time which all Western Final Fantasy fans are used to by now, before reaching stateside.

Read more: Final Fantasy anniversary editions confirmed

NPD has announced their sales figures for the busy holiday season and the results were a very pleasant surprise for the industry. Hardware was king this holiday season, though, surprisingly, it was the two recently launched consoles (the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3) which carry the biggest disappointments.

Nintendo, as expected, destroyed their competition, but it wasn’t thanks to the Wii, which sold a respectable (but still disappointing) 604.2K units bringing it’s LTD up to 1.1 million in the US. It appears to me that shortages hurt here, though nowhere near as much as the shortages and lackluster interest in the PS3 has hurt Sony. The DS hand held however, cleaned house, selling a breathtaking 1.6 million units for December, solidifying Nintendo’s hold in the hand held race and giving thrifty parents a perfectly priced stocking stuffer for their kids.

Microsoft fared quite well, with the Xbox 360 clocking in with 1.1 million units, with Gears of War becoming a new “Halo-like” franchise for the strongest running next-generation console so far.

Sony are clocking in with surprising results. PS2 post major numbers, selling a whopping 1.4 million consoles. Whether this is actually a good thing remains to be seen. It appears the PS2 is still running quite strong, which may point to a lack of interest or lack of affordability to the PS3. I don’t know how proud Sony could be of having their last generation machine tearing into the customer base which should be purchasing their new console, but, income is income and right now they certainly aren’t making anything off of the PS3. More good news for Sony followed with the PSP, which showed a stronger than expected sell through, posting 953K units, surprising those who can’t figure out a reason to even turn their PSP on anymore. On to the PS3, which posted better than expected numbers, but still pointed to a worrying start for the more than half a grand machine. With 490.7K units (687.3K LTD) the PS3 showed that it’s supply problems were holding it back, but those are rumored to be clearing up.

Overall, total hardware sales rang up to $4.6 billion USD (up 42.8%) and software amounted to $6.5 billion USD (up 6.4%).

Read more: NPD analysis by GameDaily Biz

Following in a long line of bad news for Sony, it was announced that LucasArts and Kuju have split ways, resulting in the cancellation of PSP original title Traxion. A customizable rhythm title, Traxion was gaining lots of traction (har har har) after being announced at E3 2006, the game combined a unique style of gaming and music by featuring over 20 mini games (no online casino though) which would adjust to the game’s licensed music and even your custom music stored on the PSP.

At a time when the PSP desperately needs titles which show off the unit’s media and gaming capabilities after gluts of lackluster ports, casino games and boring original titles, this must come as a somewhat hard blow to anyone still holding out hope of a PSP resurrection anytime soon. Or are the aforementioned problems possible reasons for the game being canned, the world may never know.

Read more: Traxion dumped, Kuju and LucasArts break up

JoWooD has launched the teaser page for Freakout, an upcoming freestyle skiing title to be released on the PC, PS2 and PSP platforms Q1 2007. Developed by Coldwood, who seem to be stuck making skiing titles for the Austrian publisher, Freakout aims to bring freestyle skiing to the masses, or at least to the countries where anyone actually cares about freestyle skiing.

Read more: Freakout | JoWooD