Geohot has releases the PS3 exploit and left the PS3 as quickly as he came. Along with the release comes a statement which is available to read below, also an attachment with the release has been included. Don't download this unless you're a developer, you can't do anything else without that knowledge.

In the interest of openness, I've decided to release the exploit. Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released. I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night.

Please document your findings on the psDevWiki. They have been a great resource so far, and with the power this exploit gives, opens tons of new stuff to document. I'd like to see the missing HV calls filled in, nice memory maps, the boot chain better documented, and progress on a 3D GPU driver. And of course, the search for a software exploit.

This is the coveted PS3 exploit, gives full memory space access and therefore ring 0 access from OtherOS. Enjoy your hypervisor dumps. This is known to work with version 2.4.2 only, but I imagine it works on all current versions. Maybe later I'll write up how it works

This is a good article for what it means for the less technical.
Good luck!

Link for the download can be found here
Source: GeoHot's Blog

After all the waiting, the day has finally come. (Or should I say the day is finally coming?) Atlus USA has announced on their forums and the US PlayStation Blog that Persona 3 Portable is coming stateside  for both PSP and PSPgo users. Here are a few details from the Atlus press release:

"Terrible creatures lurk in the dark, preying on those who wander into the hidden hour between one day and the next. As a member of a secret school club, you must wield your inner power—Persona—and protect humanity from impending doom. Will you live to see the light of day?"

Key Features

* Maximum Persona 3—The RPG that captured critics and fans alike achieves a new level of excellence. Built upon an enhanced version of the game, players will find numerous significant improvements, including the addition of Skill Cards, part-time jobs, a total of five difficulty settings (ranging from the newcomer-friendly "beginner" to the ultra-hardcore "maniac"), and most importantly, the ability to directly control your teammates in battle.
* Gain a whole new perspective—The choice of your protagonist's sex at the start of the game has a dramatic impact on the game's intricate social dynamics. Persona 3 veterans will get a kick out of playing through the story from a new female perspective, gaining new Social Links, special events, and unique romantic opportunities.
* Slick system enhancements—Improved playability permeates every aspect of the gameplay experience. One-button menu shortcuts, streamlined team equipment changes, incredibly short load times, and other tweaks and enhancements create an ideal pace for portable gaming.

Persona 3 Portable will be available for purchase on July 6th of this year.

While Atlus U.S.A. continues to leave us in suspense over a Persona 3 Portable U.S. release date, they've decided to indulge PSP owners' RPG-appetites with the announcement of "Hexyz Force". This game was released in Japan back in November, and it seems Atlus U.S.A. has decided the time has come to release it stateside on the 25th May 2010. The game will be available on both UMD and PSN for the price of $29.99. Details on the game from the official forum thread follow after the jump.

Today was the scheduled release date for the Dragon Age DLC, "Return to Ostagar."  With a planned release on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC; gamers would be heading back to the grounds of the Battle of Ostagar to clean up some unfinished business.  Unfortunately, Chris Priestly from Bioware broke the sad news to everyone over at the BioWare forums with a short but simple post:

Hello Dragon Age fans,

We’re sorry but the planned Return to Ostagar downloadable content scheduled to launch on January 5th has been delayed for all platforms.

We will update you as new information becomes available.

With no new date given, all we know at the moment is that the Return to Ostagar DLC will arrive some time in the future.  With the bad news of one piece of additional content being delayed, there is now word that a much larger expansion pack will be arriving on March 16th of this year.  Here's the full description from the GameStop product page.

For centuries, the Grey Wardens-the ancient order of guardians, sworn to unite and defend the lands-have been battling the darkspawn forces. Legend spoke that slaying the Archdemon would have put an end to the darkspawn threat for centuries to come, but somehow they remain. You are the Grey Warden Commander and have been entrusted with the duty of rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens and uncovering the secrets of the darkspawn and how they managed to remain. How you choose to rebuild your order, how you resolve the conflict with "The Architect", and how you determine the fate of the darkspawn will be but some of the many complex choices that await and shape your journey as you venture to the new land of Amaranthine.

Awakening Expansion - [Kotaku]

Just what happens when a multi-million dollar company nears bankruptcy? As hard as this is to believe Squaresoft - creators of megahit Final Fantasy - weren't always as successful in the games industry as they are to date. In fact, they - like many other companies out there - were faced with financial trouble due to a lot of failed projects. Join me as we journey into the depths of this company's history and explore the dark and light side of their rise to success.

The Past Origins and the Rise of Squaresoft

Squaresoft was formed by Masafumi Miyamoto in Japan back in 1983. Their first great hit was Final Fantasy, which eventually put the company on the map while their first major IP (intellectual property), Death Trap, never did achieve the same amount of success, but can still be regarded as a cult favorite for those looking into Squaresoft's history.

The game that shot Squaresoft into greatness

Before Hironobu Sakaguchi worked on the popular Final Fantasy series, he was involved in several of Squaresoft's first projects. Final Fantasy I, the first in a large series of games, was supposed to be Sakaguchi's last project for Squaresoft. The importance of his last project was indicative in the actual name of the series as it was meant to be Squaresoft's Holy Grail; their last-ditch effort to save their entire company from financial ruin.

As fate would have it, the game was so successful that Sakaguchi kept designing Final Fantasy games until Final Fantasy V: the famed story of Bartz and Exdeath. After Final Fantasy V designing passed from Sakaguchi to Yoshinori Kitase. Sakaguchi, however, was not finished with the company and served as the Director until 2001. After which, he left to form "Mistwalker Corporation" - his own personal company - and continue his work on the RPG genre working mainly for Microsoft and its Xbox 360 delivering games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

By creating the Final Fantasy series, Squaresoft revolutionized the then stagnant Japanese RPG genre, bringing much-needed innovation, and above all else, great storytelling. On a personal note, of the first five games my favorite is Final Fantasy II. The unique leveling system of Final Fantasy II is something that really sets it apart of all other Final Fantasy games, bringing personalisation never before seen at the time. Simply put, in Final Fantasy II, there are no classes and every one of your party members in proficient with any type of armor/weapon. It is up to the player to decide what they want a specific party member to be: if you want one of them to be a fierce warrior, equip him/her with weapon and armor and as battle progresses their proficiencies will go up. This gives you ample space to mold your party as you see fit. Quite revolutionary for the time, but today it's still not accepted as an effective way to level. Fortunately, rather than resting on their successes with the first two Final Fantasy games, Squaresoft went on to shine even brighter with their following four installments of the series, showing what Squaresoft really could and did bring to the RPG table.

You may have finished many games. You may have played many more even if you did not finish them. You enjoyed those games, but have you really wondered what's going on behind the scenes?

This is where "The Big Wigs" series comes in. In this new feature column, I shall delve into the companies you admire and support. Bringing to you their origins, their greatest successes and also... their greatest failures.

In this series of articles you'll see some of their secrets exposed, some games dissected, you'll also get advice on games you might have missed from them that you should definitely play.

You'll also hear the cruel truth: Are they doing the right thing in the industry? Have they become stagnant or do they continue to innovate? I'll tackle all of that here.

Let me be your guide in this adventure that is "The Big Wigs".