The new DLC will be available on all platforms(PS3, PC, 360 and Mac). Currently code named Portal 2 DLC #1, it will bring new chambers, leaderboards, a new challenge mode for single and multiplayer modes, “and more”. That already sounds like plenty, but we’ll take more if you’re offering, Valve.

And guess how much that lot will be. Free! The best kind of price.

Sony’s latest official company update on the outage remains its clarification that the network is having to be “rebuilt” in light of an outside attack, which was posted two days ago (April 23) on the official PlayStation Blog in the US.

Since then a rep has said:

“We will announce through our websites as soon as there are any updates. We are currently investigating to determine the cause of this outage and are working to restore and maintain the services. Since this is an overall security related issue, we will not be providing further commentary for this case.”

The service went down in the early hours of Thursday morning, the same day as Portal 2 was released for the PS3.

Anti-Sony hacking group Anonymous has denied responsibility for the attack, but has not ruled out the possibility that one of its members could have acted individually.

Speaking to shareholders via an investor update, Nintendo said that the new home system would be shown at E3 2011 for the first time.

The release reads:

“RE: Wii’s successor system: Nintendo Co. Ltd has decided to launch in 2012 a system to succeed Wii, which the company has sold 86.01 million units on a consolidated shipment basis between its launch in 2006 and the end of March 2011.

“We will show a playable model of the new system and announced more specifications at the E3 Expo, which will be held June 7-9 2011 in Los Angeles.”

The new Wii is said to feature a custom IBM PowerPC CPU with three cores, a GPU from the ATI R700 family with a shader unit at version 4.1, and at least 512Mb of RAM.

Rumors are also circulating that the new controller will have its own built in high definition touch screen.

One Redditor recently wrote Valver Ray Ueno about the bald guy in the Valve logo and got this response:

I worked with Gabe and team to develop the “guy in the logo” back when we first named the company, Valve (circa 1995/6), and needed to develop the visual brand vocabulary to go along with it.

Interesting that you should ask about the bald guy. Back then, the casting agencies we were using to find models only had “supermodel”-type talent. We kept requesting “heavy-set”, “normal” models, and they kept sending us “beautiful”, “thin”, “perfect” headshots to review.

So, we finally asked them to just go out on the street and pull “everyday Joes” who were more “interesting”, “common”, and for the bald guy, “kinda big, heavy-set, and bald”.

They went out to the streets of Seattle’s Broadway district, took tons of polaroids of the types of folks we were looking for, and brought the shots back to us. We selected the bald guy from the batches of “off-the-street” polaroids—he was literally pulled out of a coffee shop or book store!

A few days later, we brought him into studio and shot the image you now see at the beginning of our games. We also shot a 2nd image of a different guy with a valve in his eye using the same process (you might remember him as well—attached below). The two comprised the “Open your mind. Open your eyes.” concept for our initial brand, respectively.

It’s been very long since we did that work, so we don’t know who the models were. And the fact that they weren’t professional models, would make it very difficult to find them—if not impossible for the bald guy (not facing camera).

The trailer is narrated by an American soldier and shows off the game’s setting Tajikistan, which happens to be crawling with relentless rebels.

Check out the trailer below:

Operation Flashpoint: Red River will be out on PS3, 360 and PC on April 21 in UK and April 26 in US.

Along with Call of Duty: Black Ops, Brotherhood is up for Action, Artistic Achievement, Multiplayer, Technical Innovation and Use of Audio awards. Assasin’s Creed is also nominated for Best Game and Gameplay, with Black Ops also in the Story category.

That puts Black Ops at six nominations, the same as Sony’s Heavy Rain, which is eligible for Artistic Achievement, Best Game, Gameplay, Original Music, Story and Technical Innovation.

BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 is up for five nominations and Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Limbo are up for four awards each.

The only public voted award, the GAME Award of 2010, includes Call of Duty: Black Ops, Dance Central, FIFA 11, Halo: Reach, Heavy Rain, Limbo, Mass Effect 2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The full list of nominations is below:

Action

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• BioShock 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• God of War III
• Halo: Reach

Artistic Achievement

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• God of War III
• Heavy Rain
• LIMBO
• Mass Effect 2

Best Game

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• FIFA 11
• Heavy Rain
• LIMBO
• Mass Effect 2
• Super Mario Galaxy 2

Family

• Dance Central
• Kinect Adventures
• Kinect Sports
• Kinectimals
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• Toy Story 3

Gameplay

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• God of War III
• Heavy Rain
• LIMBO
• Mass Effect 2
• Super Mario Galaxy 2

Handheld

• Cut the Rope
• God of War: Ghost of Sparta
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• Professor Layton and the Lost Future
• Sonic Colours
• Super Scribblenauts

Multiplayer

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Halo: Reach
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Original Music

• Alan Wake
• Fable III
• Heavy Rain
• James Bond 007: Bloodstone
• Mass Effect 2
• Super Mario Galaxy 2

Social Network Game

• Bejeweled Blitz
• Farmerama
• FIFA Superstars
• My Empire
• Zoo Mumba
• Zuma Blitz

Sports

• F1 2010
• FIFA 11
• Football Manager 2011
• Gran Turismo 5
• International Cricket 2010
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2011

Story

• Alan Wake
• BioShock 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Heavy Rain
• Mass Effect 2

Strategy

• Civilization V
• Fallout: New Vegas
• FIFA Manager 11
• Napoleon Total War
• Plants vs. Zombies XBLA
• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Technical Innovation

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Halo: Reach
• Heavy Rain
• Kinectimals
• Super Mario Galaxy 2

Use of Audio

• Alan Wake
• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• Battlefield: Bad Company: 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• DJ Hero 2
• Limbo

BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital

• Mush
• Sculpty
• Twang

GAME Award of 2010

• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Dance Central
• FIFA 11
• Halo Reach
• Heavy Rain
• Limbo
• Mass Effect 2
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
• Red Dead Redemption
• Super Mario Galaxy 2  

Here’s a new gameplay trailer for the new, bright and cheerful Mario Sports Mix.

The traditional Mario gang are joined by the Slimes from Square Enix’ Dragon Quest games for rounds of various ball sports in wacky arenas.

Although the trailer doesn’t fit with Nintendo’s usual high quality, it still gives us a little buzz of excitement about the upcoming game.

In the new PSN description for recent release of Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 it reads: “You must log-in to the PlayStation Network each time to play the game.” While this isn’t as bad as always-on DRM found on PC – the game only checks for a PSN connection when it boots and won’t kick you out – it’s still bound to frustrate PS3 players who aren’t always online.

Capcom apologised last year for not making clear that similar DRM was present in Final Fight: Double Impact, which featured online two-player co-op.

The peculiar thing about Bionic Commando’s DRM however is that it’s an offline game, suggesting that Capcom may be concerned about piracy.

Details

NGP will use a new game medium, a small flash memory based card, dedicated for NGP software titles. The cards will store full game titles and add-on game content or save data. Sony notes that they’ll be able to provide higher capacity cards in the future to allow developers to store more game data. The device also supports PlayStation Network Trophies.

The NGP contains a touch screen on top and a touch pad on the bottom. This will allow players to interact with games through “touch, grab, trace, push and pull” moves of the fingers.

Release Dates

Sadly, the release date and price were not revealed. However, Sony did say that the NGP would be out for the 2011 holiday season.

Games

The NGP’s debut party saw Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid 4, LittleBigPlanet and Call of Duty take the stage, but most were just tech demos. So far, more than 10 third-parties are listed a supporting the NGP.

Interface

NGP, the successor to the PlayStation Portable, is getting an all-new interface. Dubbed LiveArea, the program acts as a hub page for games, and like the XMB before it, LiveArea allows users to hop between the different parts of the PlayStation space.

As you can see the map is based in a disused hockey stadium, which Treyarch describes as “A mid-sized map designed for close-quarters mayhem, teams must fight tooth and nail in a maze of tight corners and deadly vantage points.”