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We're guessing Ken Kutaragi kept the beermat. Sony staffers privately joke with us that he probably came up with the idea on the back of one and then papier-mâchéd up a prototype in time for E3 2003, but whether it was a beermat or a big piece of paper marked "Masterplan" or an internal memo or whatever, it was clearly a good idea. The PSP is a lovely piece of kit with a delightfully huge screen, enough power to allow us to play PS2-quality games on the go, and an array of wireless and multiplayer features that make it highly desirable on a lot of levels - and most importantly it's also going to introduce us to a vast array of games that we really want to play.

Californian publisher Crave has announced its first Nintendo DS game, World Championship Poker: Deluxe Series, which is currently available on PS2, Xbox and GBA in the US of States. The DS effort features "over 12" poker variants including Texas Hold'em, Five Card Draw Baseball and Hi-Lo, six-player muliplayer (which is presumably WiFi-based), four themed casino environments (with blackjack and video poker distractions), and a career mode with Casino Lane, Tournament Tables, a loan shark and a gift shop. Which, as you can tell from our regurgitation of the press release bullet-points, we're very excited about. A US release on April 5th is, er, on the cards.

Publisher Take Two, whose plans for its sports game franchise have been hard hit by a string of exclusive license deals announced by rival Electronic Arts, may be in talks to sign a similar exclusive with Major League Baseball.

Bioware's latest Xbox-exclusive RPG, Jade Empire, has reportedly been delayed by a month in the States, but there's been no change to the game's European release target of Q2 2005 according to a Microsoft UK rep we spoke to this morning.

Blizzard has apologised profusely to fans of World of Warcraft who experienced huge delays joining servers over the weekend and on Monday's nationwide American holiday, implemented a stop-gap fix to try and assuage fans' anger, and pledged to credit players' accounts with an extra 48 hours of paid-for play-time to compensate.

Given Splinter Cell's Xbox origins, it's always been a bit of a task for Ubi to squeeze all the visual trickery onto other consoles; not so much of an issue for the Cube, but certainly the PS2 versions.

Valve has updated Counter-Strike: Source with AI-controlled bots and a version of de_tides reworked by Turtlerock Studios, giving us yet another reason not to right-click and whack 'Exit' when the inescapable Steam app pops up in the morning.

A software update for the PlayStation Portable which leaked onto the internet over the weekend is genuine, according to Sony, but installing it will stop the console from working and may damage the hardware.

Original IP title Roll Call is back on SCi Entertainment's release schedule, after the British publisher agreed to fund a new development studio founded by staff who had worked on the title at the now-defunct Argonaut.

Need For Speed Underground 2 maintained a vice-like grip on the UK's No.1 spot this morning, as Electronic Arts' street racing title shook off all comers for an eighth straight week.

£24.99 will be the price of the C64 Direct to TV device, it has been confirmed, with the computer-in-a-joystick being released later next month at a fiver less than initially announced last week.

Rare's handheld team is still in gainful employment if this post on the Rare website is anything to go by, but the firm is remaining tight-lipped on what's next in this area of game development.

Electronic Arts has struck a further blow against competitors in the sports game market, signing an exclusive 15 year deal with sports broadcaster, and former Take Two / SEGA partner, ESPN.

There will be no review of Mark's Christmas dinner because he doesn't want to offend anybody, which kind of tells its own story in a way. (A story of broken promises and deceit.) Ours though was extremely pleasant, with all the trimmings present and correct and a smashing array of pre-lunch Christmas morning nibbles including carrots with dip, salmon and chorizo bits (there was some sort of biscuit involved in the former, we seem to recall, although the port and brandy kind of fogs that side of our memory), and a Christmas pudding that must have burned for about half a minute before imploding in a manner that gave the lie to an exterior that screamed "richness and plenty!" leaving a saggy old alcoholic lying in the gutter having just coughed up guts its up. Tasted pretty good anyway though. It was certainly better than Halo in our view, which we've never been in the least bit tempted to put in our mouths.

Atari has released a pretty hefty demo of Eugen Systems' extremely promising real-time strategy title Act of War: Direct Action, which makes battlefields out of the likes of San Francisco, Washington, Moscow and London and sees the player fighting against terrorists funded by a consortium of petrol giants trying to destabilise the economy and profit from rocketing oil prices.

Star Fox Assault will include unlockable versions of Famicom/NES games Xevious, Battle City and Star Luster according to Japanese retail reports, while the next GameCube Harvest Moon title will feature an ensemble cast of characters from past games.

Speaking at a retail meeting in Japan last week, Nintendo reportedly discussed release dates and details for a number of its Q1 Japanese DS releases according to those who were in attendance. The platform holder mentioned downloadable demo data, and there's also talk of replacement styluses with game-specific designs.

As the winter nights continue to draw in like an overzealous pencil with a fondness for punctuality, and the Christmas change jangling around in your pocket threatens to burst the lining and shower your shoes in chilly metal on a busy commuter train, the UK budget labels are poised to take advantage in the next few months with a mixture of high quality and commercially successful relics - and a few you'd probably do best to ignore.

Accessories group Wild Things is set to release a range of four official Street Fighter Anniversary for PlayStation 2 developed by Nubytech Inc. in the UK on 1st February.

Square Enix's "new concept brand" Code Age, trailed in fairly nondescript fashion alongside the release of the Japanese Dragon Quest VIII last November, will be developed as a manga comic series before being developed into a videogame.

Majesco will publish Planet Moon's debut PlayStation Portable title Infected towards the end of the year, the American publisher announced this week.

Creating MMORPG title World of Warcraft has been "a Herculean type of effort", according to Blizzard VP Paul Sams and creative director Chris Metzen, speaking in an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

A new ruling in the ongoing legal battle between Sony and US firm Immersion Corp has ordered the Japanese giant to pay a quarterly license fee for its use of force feedback technology in PlayStation hardware and games.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch may be about to make a move into the videogames industry, with the COO of his giant News Corporation group confirming that the company is seeking an acquisition in the sector.

In looking forward to the highlights of the 2005 calendar year on the Nintendo DS, it's not just the games that European fans have to get excited about; it's the console itself. Following an extremely popular launch in the US in late November and a similarly encouraging lift-off in Japan under a fortnight later, those of us waiting patiently in the middle can mark a couple of key dates on the novelty calendars we got for Christmas before starting to worry about which games to buy. First there's the end of January, when Nintendo is expected to announce European launch details including a £129.99 price point at a press event in France, and then there's late March (possibly the 25th), when the system is finally expected to go on sale.

Research and development spending at Nintendo will top 22 billion Yen (163 million Euro) this year, according to a report in the Japanese business press, with the company also planning to boost capital and marketing spend.

Promising Nintendo DS adventure title Another Code: Futatsu no Kioku has been given a Japanese release date of 24th February according to reports from the region. There's currently no word on an American or European release.

The Myst series is to come to an end this autumn, by the sound of it, when Ubisoft publishes Myst V: End of Ages, described as the final episode. Cyan Worlds is once again hard at work on the PC/Mac title, and Myst co-creator Rand Miller is leading the team on End of Ages, "bringing closure to the Myst storyline via its most dramatic and immersive experience to date".

Previously on DS Games To Watch in 2005...

The Commodore 64 is to become the latest retro gaming machine to be repackaged as a plug and play joystick, with the "Direct to TV" system being issued with 30 all-time classics later this year.