Usually it's Xbox 360 players who get premium content first for Battlefield 3, but Premium subscribers that bought a subscription on PlayStation 3 will be delighted to hear that they will get to play the latest expansion, Armored Kill, before anyone else on September 4. Xbox 360 and PC owners will have to wait until September 11, while those who don't have a Premium subscription will have to wait until September 18.

Even though a story about a fresh security breach on PlayStation Network turned out to be a hoax, Sony decided to issue a short statement on the matter with C&VG.

Sony is doing all it can this week at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany to breathe new life into its latest hand-held, the PlayStation Vita. Earlier in the week it announced that it would give consumers a free copy of a Vita game when they purchased a select PS3 game, and announced that an upcoming firmware update would make PlayStation Classic games compatible on the hand-held.

Sony Computer Entertainment will shut down some old servers that provide multiplayer for several PSP and PS3 games, the company announced this morning. SCE will start by shutting down the servers for MotorStorm Pacific Rift for the PlayStation 3, and the PSP titles MotorStorm Arctic Edge and SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3 on October 1.

Of course all of these games will still be available for offline play.

According to Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley, 70 percent of DC Universe Online players prefer the game on the PlayStation 3. Speaking to GamesIndustry International, Smedley says that his company has proven that free-to-play gaming on Sony's console is a viable market, and one that's supported well. Smedley makes a good point considering that there are more MMO's on the PS3 than there are on any other console and the PS3 is the only console system that has successfully supported the free-to-play model in games like DC Universe Online and Free Realms.

South Korea's new "Shutdown Law" was supposed to keep teens from gaming during a six hour block every night to focus on "more important things" like studying, but two groups have already filed lawsuits that question the legality of the new nanny state law concocted by lawmakers in the country. A group of game makers doing business in the region including NCsoft, Neowiz, and Nexon, have filed a lawsuit claiming that the Shutdown Law is unjust and unfair to them.

The PlayStation Store for South Korea will be shut down temporarily, according to a report on Kotaku. The digital marketplace for the PSP, PS3, and PS Vita will be shut down due to a new "Shutdown Law" in the country that is meant to keep gamers in the region age 16 or younger from playing games during a six hour block of time every night. The law was already imposed on the PlayStation Network.

According to several published reports, Sony will bring backwards compatibility back to the PlayStation 3 via a new partnership with cloud-based game streaming company Gaikai. Using the company's game-streaming technology PlayStation 3 owners will be able to play first- and third-party classic PlayStation One and PlayStation 2 titles through the service. Sony is expected to make some sort of announcement related to cloud-based gaming next week during its E3 Expo press event in Los Angeles.

GameStop International and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have partnered to bring PlayStation Network DLC to 1,600 retail video game stores throughout Europe and Australia. This includes stores in Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Consumers can purchase downloadable content in stores using cash, gift cards, and in-store credits from trade-ins to buy the DLC.

Atlus USA delivered some great news to fans of its ultra popular online-focused RPG, Demon's Souls: the game's servers will not go offline. On April 12 Atlus had announced that it would be shutting the online servers down for the PS3 game on May 31.

But today a tweet from the company's official Twitter account, @AtlusUSA, revealed some great news:

A new profile of George "Geohot" Hotz, the guy who jailbroke the iPhone and then the PlayStation 3, went live today in The New Yorker Magazine. 

EA, BioWare, and Sony have finally worked out whatever differences they had to allow owners of the PS3 version of Mass Effect 3 to take part in multiplayer online events via PlayStation Network. The first one of these events that includes PS3 owners is Operation EXORCIST, which begins later tonight.

BioWare said in a blog post today: "Good news Spectres! Starting with Operation EXORCIST, N7 Weekend Challenges will extend to the PlayStation 3 platform."

As they did with the PSP, Sony and Skype have teamed up to bring the popular VOIP communication service to the PlayStation Vita. Both Skype video and voice calling will be accessible to PS Vita 3G/Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi model owners. The Skype app includes free Skype-to-Skype voice calling, as well as video calling that utilizes PS Vita’s front and rear cameras. The Skype app will also have the ability to run in background mode, allowing players to leave it running while they are gaming or using other applications.

According to the official PlayStation Blog, the PlayStation Network and related services will be down for maintenance for around 13 hours. How will we survive, I wonder? Beginning at approximately 2pm GMT / 6am PDT / 9am EDT various PSN services will go offline as Sony tinkers, tweaks, and upgrades them. The maintenance will last until approximately 3am GMT / 7pm PDT / 10pm EDT.

According to this C&VG report, the reason that owners of Mass Effect 3 on the PlayStation 3 do not have access to the multiplayer challenges that other platforms enjoy is because "Sony won't approve them."

A Federal Court has ruled that Sony has the right to change the terms of service on its PlayStation Network service because it is a "choice" for its users. Sony changed its TOS for the PlayStation Network last year by adding a clause that anyone wanting to sue the company would instead have to go to what some like to call "mandatory arbitration." 

The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Navy have launched a new research initiative that will find new ways to let the government gain access to information stored on home console systems like the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Adult video streaming company SugarDVD is expanding its service with a new app for the PlayStation 3. The saucy adult video service is already available on ROKU, BOXEE, and Google TV. For around $8 a month adult users can watch unlimited streaming titles divided up amongst various categories (which we're not going to mention here). There are also DVD and streaming combo packages, with the most expensive plan - 8 DVDs out at a time and unlimited streaming - for about $40 a month.

If you are a PlayStation 3 owner and also an Amazon Prime subscriber, you'll be happy to know that you can watch all that unlimited video that Prime offers on your Sony device. Prior to the service being available on the PS3, Amazon Prime video was only available via the Internet, Roku devices, and select smart TVs. Sony has also agreed to feature the app on all PS3 systems sold in the U.S.

Here we go again. Another "reliable source" - this time with inside knowledge on Sony's next console, offers some rumors that should upset a majority of the gaming public.

Sony has released an interesting list of the PlayStation 3 games that players have managed to get an elusive Platinum trophy in the most. At the top of this heap is... Assassin's Creed 2. It was followed by Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, God of War 3 and Resident Evil 5. Sony social media manager Jeff Rubenstein, who revealed the top ten list on the PlayStation Blog said that all the games listed below were commercial successes.

Earlier in the week Sony announced that it would be doing 14 hours' worth of "routine Maintenance" on PlayStation Network and related services. According to a new post on the official PlayStation Blog, that maintenance will not happen today as planned.

"UPDATE: This maintenance period has been postponed. We will re-post when the date is rescheduled. PSN’s online gaming and services on Thursday, March 1, will be normal."

A message on the Official PlayStation Blog warns PlayStation Network users that the service will shut down for 14 hours for some routine maintenance. You will not be able to sign in to PlayStation Network during that time, and any websites related to it will also go off the grid until the service returns on Friday. Sony did not disclose what it would be changing or if a new update would be applied during this service outage. From the blog:

One of our readers (who wishes to remain anonymous) passed along an email from Sony Entertainment Network customer service on Friday saying that the company had accidently overcharged them sales tax related to the period between November 18, 2010 and April 11, 2011. While his email noted that they overcharged him by 0.06 cents, we have seen at least one other email saying that the company overcharged a customer by $9.24.

Sony announced plans to release the multiplayer component of Guerrilla Games' Killzone 3 as a standalone download on the PlayStation Network, but the best part of this news is that it will be free to play. Sony made the announcement during the most recent episode of the Sony Blogcast. The one caveat is that level progression will be capped, though to what extent or exact point we do now know.

A petition on Change.org asks Sony's Chairman to change the number of devices that can be activated from the current two to the original five on PlayStation Network. According to the creator of the petition, the November 2011 update to the PS3 stopped any activated PS3's beyond the first two from being able to download content from the PlayStation Network.

"This has effectively turned many PS3 consoles into very expensive paper weights!," says the main message on the petition page.

In September Sony updated the PlayStation Network's terms of service to include a new clause removing the ability for customers (who were more than likely upset over the major security breach that happened earlier in the year) to file future class action lawsuits. Users who accepted the new TOS had to agree to individual arbitration instead of a lawsuit if they had a grievance against Sony. Since users had to agree to the new TOS in order to sign in to PSN, many simply agreed and moved on.

Sony's Andrew House has told Reuters that the company aims to sell 15 million PlayStation 3's in the fiscal year ending March 2012, despite a turbulent year for the company. The head of Sony Computer Entertainment revealed that sales on the console were ahead of target.

With the pending release of PlayStation Vita in Japan, Sony has finally revealed how owners of UMD-based games will be able to get digital versions of them on their new PlayStation hand-held devices. All games will have to be re-purchased to be played on Vita, but those who can prove via UMD that they already own games will get a discount when re-purchasing the same content digitally.

In an interview with Develop Epic Games President Michael Capps says that console makers need to loosen the stranglehold they have on developers when it comes to pricing. Capps says they need to do this because game revenues have shifted to service and micro-transaction model. Currently developers can't decide what the price of their games on consoles should be because those prices are already set by the console makers.