There was some recent news around game sites yesterday regarding the decryption of a Capcom arcade system board named CPS-3 or Capcom Play System 3, the sucessor to CPS-2 which the Street Fighter II series and alot of Capcom games are based on. So what's the big deal with CPS-3 being decrypted you say? Well, as you may (or not) know, in the emulation world, decrypting the protection on arcade boards is a major step in the right direction to begin emulating these arcade games, which is another story on to itself. The noble reason to emulate these arcade games is to preserve them before they go out of existence, some games are already lost for good. CPS-3 had only six games made for it. The first being an unreleased game called Warzard/Redearth, then JoJos Venture and finally the Street Fighter III series. The CPS-3 boards were short lived because of the high cost and the fragile nature of the protection scheme resulting in dead boards. While some my not care, be rest assured that there is a group of technical wizards out there preserving arcade systems from the 1970's till today and that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

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An insider for Kotaku has leaked midnight launch info for Playstation 3's. Only 18 Bestbuy stores in the US will have a midnight release.

• Park Lane, TX
• West LA, CA
• Chesterfield, MO
• El Cajon
• Superstition Springs, AZ
• Chapel Hill, OH
• Richfield, MN
• Galleria, TX
• Butterfield RD, IL
• Wester Hollywood, CA
• Ann Arbor, MI
• Gwinnet, GA
• Hialeah, FL
• South Tampa, FL
• Mt Laurel, NJ
• Manhattan NoHo, NY
• Landmark, MA
• Manhattan Midtown, NY

As always, take this with a big ol grain of salt, although it does look legit, I see the Bestbuys listed are High Traffic stores, one is in my area. Everyone, get your tents ready!

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Sony is not doing itself a favor by attacking small companies, especially before the Playstation 3 launch date. Sony has apparently been bleeding import website Lik-Sang to death with multiple lawsuit's, as a result Lik-Sang is shutting down. What did Lik-Sang do you say? Just importing Sony related products like the PSP, PS2 etc to Europe, that's all. I don't know, even if it was a grey area when it comes to European laws, Sony should have waited untill after the Playstation 3 was launched to do anything like this. Sony certainly keeps the bad press rolling don't they. What's worse is that top Sony executives in Europe purchased hardware from Lik-Sang! What a backstab.

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I'm not used to seeing bonus items given to U.S. gamers. Actually I'm quite shocked about the bonus items we are getting with Castlevania:Portrait of Ruin, provided you pre-order the DS game from GameStop, E B Games and GameCrazy retail stores. The Swag you will be getting is a 48 page art book detailing every game in the series, 20th anniversary soundtrack CD, timeline poster, stylus and game case. Pre-Order Now!!

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Exlusive Pro Evolution Soccer 6 bundle announced for Europe. Microsoft is pushing the bundles these days, first the Japan bundle and now this. Europe loves thier soccer, Japan loves thier RPG, I'm suprised thier isn't a Gears of War bundle...or is thier?

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Looks like Microsoft plans to make their next-gen consoles processor themselves and leaving partners Intel in the dust. The Microsoft research team creating this next-gen chip is called the "Computer Architecture Group" and is headed by Microsoft engineer Charles P. Thacker. I would have figured that Microsoft would be satisfied with what they have assimilated but apparently the Borg king himself wants more. Resistance is futile.

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Technorati Profile

Everyone had heard that the Playstation 3 would run Linux. The question was what flavor of Linux that was. Now we hear that it's Yellow Dog Linux. I can see the hacker underground scene rubbing thier hands together in anticipation to break into the Playstation 3.

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It looks like Nintendo was busy making other stuff before they where busy making games and consoles. Before the 1980's they used to make toys and board games, a couple of tv games too. Pictured here is Godzilla: All out Kid Attack. No No, actually it's called Round Game, although when translated it actually says "Time Race Game". Check out the source for more pictures.

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