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Microsoft and Sony have cut their console prices down under within hours of one another, AustralianIT reports. As has become the norm, when one firm crowed about cutting the tag from AUS$399 (€220 / £160) to AUS$329 (€180 / £130) - equivalent to recent cuts in Europe and the United States - the other responded in kind, levelling the playing field once more and giving consumers yet more incentive to part with their dollars.

Although reports circulated late last week that Phantagram's Duality had been shelved - in light of its non-appearance at E3 - RPGRadar now reports that the game has not been cancelled, and will still be released, but that it has been put "on hold" until 2004. Assuming the project is started up again, expect to hear more next year.

It seems so unfair that Grand Theft Auto's birth platform has become second best to Sony's unstoppable monolith. It's almost as if Rockstar has been thumbing its nose at PC users, making us wait months and months to indulge in madcap driving and violence whilst our PS2-owning mates bask in the glorious Floridian sun-drenched climes of Vice City. But not for long, oh no, because now it's finally here - and you've probably already got a copy, haven't you?

We're a patient bunch here at Eurogamer. We really are. We're brought up in a nation of queue lovers and the phrase "all good things come to those who wait" is tattooed on our foreheads. But when it comes to Duke Nukem Forever, the whinging pom in us starts to come out of every pore.

CDV has released a 15MB, 41 second trailer of its Xbox-only, third person beat 'em up Vultures (screenshots here), which is due out in the second half of 2003. The trailer shows off some of the shiniest aspects of the sharp-looking game engine, and most of it takes place during a thunderstorm, with real-time shadows cast during lightning flashes and no let up in frame rate. If the gameplay's laced with as much detail as the graphics engine, Vultures will definitely be one to watch. Download the trailer direct from Eurogamer here.

UK-based developer Argonaut has issued a pretty depressing trade update this morning, mainly focusing on the cancellation by Vivendi Universal Games of long overdue character-based platformer Malice and the outright termination of Orchid - described as "heavy blows" by company chairman Julian Paul.

Summer's here, and that means that all we can look forward to between now and the gale force splish splosh of winter are burnt crumpets, bikini-related euphemisms and disinterested publishers. Already our weekly thirst for gaming treats is going unquenched, with a list this week so weak and spindly that most of the below is feigned enthusiasm.

Electronic Arts' has released details on this months update for online space RPG Earth & Beyond. The monthly updates are designed to push along the story and make the player feel as if they are involved in an epic, constantly evolving plot [So er, why announce what you're going to do in advance? -puzzled Ed]. This latest update sees Kahn, the leader of the Progen Centuriata warriors, declaring war on a mysterious alien species whose ships have been gathering in numbers across the majority of explored space in recent months. Dant dant daahhh.

Both Dengeki Online and Famitsu are reporting various comments from Square Enix's recent business strategy meeting, which put Final Fantasy XII (the first "proper" series update since Final Fantasy X) in gamers' hands this year, and predict a 2004 release for Dragon Quest VIII. Worldwide.

There's now a four mission demo available for Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Trail, developed by er... E-Pie? Anyway, from the screenshots it would appear that it's another one of those first person shooter things, and a slightly dodgy one at that. But hey! We haven't played it yet, so we'll have to reserve judgement until after we've downloaded the (gulp) 205MB demo. Mirrors!

Development on The Frozen Throne, the first WarCraft III expansion from Blizzard, has been completed and has gone gold. The pack will bolt on a new chapter with a pretty sizeable booty of new stuff that includes (deep breath) four new single-player campaigns and a smaller RPG-style mini-campaign that was designed to show off the power of the world editor, four new race-specific Heroes, two new units per race, three new tilesets, five neutral Heroes, new neutral buildings, expanded multiplayer options including clan and tournament support, "numerous" new multiplayer maps and an enhanced world editor. Whew!

Namco's Japanese language investor relations page (we wouldn't advise you bother) has been updated with oodles of information on the current state of the company's various games, following a recent meeting to announce fiscal results.

Zoids VS, based on the best cartoon about robots we've seen in ages, has spawned a sequel. Although Zoids VS never made it out on these shores, string-puller Tomy is working on a sequel (imaginatively titled Zoids VS 2) for Japanese release in September. As with the previous one, it's unlikely to see a Stateside release, let alone make it to Europe, but our hope is that if we keep casually bringing it up then some suited businessfolk in the far east will respond by taking steps to rectify this. Unlikely, but hey, we had high hopes for that Matrix game didn't we?

Ubi Soft has confirmed that a group of players found a way to hack the servers of its online RPG Shadowbane. The culprits managed to find a way to teleport non-player characters into cities, resulting in the deaths of many player characters and the subsequent shutdown of the service to rectify the issue. Apparently, Ubi is working with law enforcement to try and track down and prosecute those responsible for the disturbance, but with this lovely weather and all we expect they were only trying to do their friends a favour.

Multi-Theft Auto, the multiplayer deathmatch patch for the PC release of GTA3, has reached the mindbending milestone of version 0.3b (well, you know), and is available here sized 4.9MB. The authors encourage players to download the PDF-based manual too.

Hey hey rally fans, Codemasters has released a PC demo of Colin McRae Rally 3, featuring three stages of cars-in-mud fun. The download will cost you 121MB in bandwidth, and you can grab it directly from Codemasters, from 3D Gamers (once their mirrors catch up with ol' Col), or from Worthplaying. Vroom etc.

Microsoft is bracing itself for the busiest year end in its history with a gigantic schedule of first party Xbox software, along with some tasty PC morsels too.

Take-Two has confirmed in an announcement to the financial community that it will release Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne in the Autumn of 2003 on PC, with PS2 and Xbox versions following "shortly thereafter". Take-Two is usually pretty reliable with its release date announcements, so we're confident it will actually make the all-important October release slot.

"Leading members of the gaming press" have picked their nominations for the Game Critics Awards, designed to pick out the cream of this year's E3 crop. The nominations are mostly predictable, but there appear to be some fairly baffling omissions, and the lack of platform-specific categories save the PC seems odd to us.

As predictable as a new FIFA game, we hardly need to remind you that there's a new Gran Turismo title due out on the PS2 at the end of the year, and more than a few of you will be perspiring just a little at the prospect of opening the bonnet of Mk.4 and sniffing the fumes.

We noticed on GameSpot today that Atari has released a few new maps for Unreal Championship via the Xbox Live service, as well as sneaking in some tweaks that address some balancing issues and weapon exploits. Currently available for your perusal are two medium-sized deathmatch maps supporting four to eight players, one small deathmatch map supporting two to four players, and a Capture the Flag map.

Illusion Softwarks has officially confirmed that its 1930s crime story Mafia is to make its way from the PC to PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube, with a release date tentatively scheduled for the end of the year. Apparently the developer is planning on porting as much of the PC version's code over to the consoles as possible, with only minor tweaks to get the game running on each platform, making the port an almost perfect copy.

The full release of the standalone Return to Castle Wolfenstein expansion (although, if it's standalone, it isn't an expansion is it? Oh I don't know... it's free anyway) Enemy Territory has finally been released endowed with six maps and a full campaign mode.

Back in the early 90s, you couldn't move for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the sanitised Saturday morning cartoon "cowabunga", Hero Turtles version, that is. There were lunchboxes, sticker books, hilarious "pop records", movies based around scary-looking animatronics, snack foods and pizza branding, and even videogames. Well, now that the franchise is undergoing something of a forced revival in living rooms up and down the land (whether we like it or not), Konami is keen to saddle the bandwagon (or bandsurfboard) and bring our vintage "heroes in a half-shell" well and truly up to date. Or not.

Atari's movie tie-in Enter The Matrix is at number one in the UK sales charts again this week, and there are new top ten entries for EA's The Sims Superstar and Def Jam Vendetta, and Konami's Silent Hill 3.

Reuters is reporting that Sony plans to launch a new games machine in Japan this year. But don't get your hopes up; this is not the long-awaited PS3 announcement.

NovaLogic has just activated its one-millionth NovaWorld multiplayer account, and the publisher adds that as many as a million battles are fought on the service every week.

NVIDIA has responded angrily to claims that it employed underhand tactics to inflate benchmark scores in 3DMark03. Their response is posted in full and unedited:

Sega's latest Sonic title is using RenderWare in order to speed up the game's multi-platform development, Criterion announced yesterday. All three versions of the game were seen at E3, and described as 20 per cent complete at the time.

We've heard via GamerFeed that Veteran developer Hudson is remaking a few of its old classics to celebrate the Famicom's 20th anniversary, to be published in Japan by Konami on GameCube at a budget price of 3200 Yen.