I have made this article because I would like to play music everyone is interested in and giveaway prizes everyone wants, not to mention talk about gaming news people actually want to hear about.

Music - I will play anything: censored, uncensored, orchestral, classical, parodies, etc. There are no limitations, so please, request away.

Prizes - I will give away anime items, movies, CDS, downloads, games, books, magazines, etc (pretty much anything). If there is something you have been wanting, you can request it to be a prize. I can’t guarantee you that what you requested will be chosen as a prize, but I’ll do what I can to make prizes awesome.

Gaming News - I will talk about anything gaming related. If you’re tired of all of the old news you’ve already read before, you can request for something new. You are the reason why PlayStationGang is still around, so it only makes sense to try and satisfy you, the community, to the best of our ability.

Questions - there will be a chat section and a call button where you can ask me anything. If I feel it is an appropriate question, I will answer it in text or verbally.

*Spoiler* Expect a PS4 to be one of the prizes.

So what are you waiting for? Comment down below and start requesting for stuff!

The PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home, and Account Management will not be accessible. However,  those who attempt to  signing into PSN  before the maintenance will not be effective. You will be able to access to your online gaming session.

Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester and Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin put forward a plan calling for neuroscientists and game designers to work together to determine what aspects of play can  improve cognitive performance—and for enabling  game designers from academia to get their products to market, a process they compare to transferring drugs from the lab to patients.

The promise of video games for enhancing a range of cognitive skills was highlighted as well in the January/February issue of Scientific American Mind in an article that points out that games like Call of Duty can improve visual ability, attention, spatial reasoning and decision making. The article mentions the work of Bavelier, an advisor to a game company, and others who are trying to realize the vision of  neural enhancement either through action play or explicitly labeled brain training.

By coincidence, the same issue of Mind references one of the biggest snags in bringing forth gaming as pedagogy.  In the letters section of that issue, three researchers—David Hambrick, Frederick Oswald and Thomas Redick—cite the absence of any convincing evidence for efforts to improve intelligence through mental exercises —the basis for much of  the lucrative brain-game industry. Their letter was a response to an earlier Mind article that showed that an “n-back test,” incorporated into some games, can improve working memory, a measure related to intelligence.

What’s the answer?  I can only waffle here. The article by Bavelier and Davidson indicates why it is difficult to disentangle studies on games for brain enhancement. In sum, this  type of research is tough to do. “Placebo controls are not possible,” the authors write, “so optimal designs probably involve having several comparison groups, including an active gameplaying comparison [group] and perhaps other, more typical interventions, such as drug therapy.”

One of the underlying themes in brain research in recent decades is the accumulation of evidence for neuroplasticity, the brain’s apparent ability to remold  like clay in response to changing inputs from the outside world: the brain of a blind person expropriating the visual cortex to process sensations of touch.  One long-time pioneer in neuroplasticity research, Michael Merzenich, became involved with developing brain-training software—and researchers in the laboratory of Nina Kraus at Northwestern University reported in February that using one of the brain training exercises developed by Merzenich’s company, Posit Science, enabled older adults to hear better by letting them process sounds more quickly.

It’s studies like this that may have prompted the White House Office of Science and Technology and the National Science Foundation to organize a get-together last year of gaming companies and neuroscientists—and the second annual Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society conference is being held from March 15 to 17th at the University of Southern California.

The  biggest challenge in all of these endeavors will be to determine whether a higher score on Call of Duty translates into a larger tally on tests of mental processing time (how fast you jam on the brakes when a kid runs in front of your car to retrieve a ball) or working memory (keeping a new phone number in your head long enough to dial). As the letter writers to Mind imply, not much evidence exists so far that a video war fantasy or a psychological test, slightly re-purposed into the form of a commercial brain game, will get you into Mensa if you didn’t have the essentials from the outset.

Call of Duty may improve memory, attention, reflexes and whatnot for Sergeant John “Soap” MacTavish, a game character, but that’s wholly separate from whether the actual game player also displays augmented function for those attributes when venturing beyond a desktop virtual world. Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology from the University of Virgina, sums up the main critique of cognitive calisthenics: “What we really want to do is target a cognitive process [say, attention or memory] and then design a game that packages practice of that process into a gaming experience. That effort has been ongoing for 20 years or so in the education world and game designers have found it much more difficult than anyone thought it would be.”

Judging whether anything has actually changed within the neural circuitry of a game player’s prefrontal cortex is an exceedingly difficult task. A player may actually improve when tested on a measure like working memory—in principle, demonstrating that interacting with battlefield graphics translates into an improvement in mental ability. But that may not suffice. Willingham again:

There has been enormous controversy over transfer in working-memory training. At least in some tests, researchers show transfer [from the game to] working memory measures. What they don’t show is beneficial effects of working memory training to cognitive processes that have working memory as a constituent—reasoning, for example. So working memory is highly correlated with reasoning ability and then you boost working memory…but reasoning doesn’t get any better. Why? That’s still under debate…it’s not obvious that if we can boost mental rotation [a skill mentioned by Bavelier and Davidson in their article], we will make people into better dentists or  scientists.

This hurdle will likely leave both psychologists and software developers executives undeterred, if only because of the hypnotic allure of gaming: Call of Duty: Black Ops was played the equivalent of  68,000 years in the month after its release. Michael Posner, a professor of psychology from the University of Oregon, believes that the issue of transfer effects will ultimately be addressable: “We do have principles for predicting transfer based on common elements among tasks, common mental operation in performing them, or common anatomy of the brain networks that support them. Many of the findings are disputed, but I think in the end it will be possible to know the limits of generalization of different forms of learning.”

More (and better designed) research will be needed before that goal is achieved. Walter Boot, who researches complex skill training at Florida State University, says that most of the studies on games arrive freighted with methodological flaws—they include overly simplistic lab tasks, inadequate control groups and a failure to measure whether a game skill translated to the world beyond the confines of a game. “The potential of games to improve cognition is exciting and in the end may be a fruitful approach,” Boot says, “but it will be important for consumers of these games to be given realistic expectations regarding their effect. Much more research is necessary before this can happen.”

For the moment, a video or brain game that enhances neuroplasticity or IQ may not be where a parent or student should look to learn how to learn better. Willingham and colleagues published a lengthy review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest this year that shows that the student that tests herself on recently learned material and goes over coursework at set intervals, rather than cramming, has the best chance of success. Whether or not they make the brain more plastic, these tried-and-true methods, affirmed by a body of psychological research, may be as good as it gets.

Later Today, the PlayStation Store will update, so the PSP version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will be playable on the PS Vita.

Source

February 2013

• 12/02 - Aliens: Colonial Marines
• 19/02 - Crysis 3
• 19/02 - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
• 26/02 - Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titans
• 26/02 - Rayman Legends

March 2013

• 01/03 - Metro: Last Light
• 05/03 - MLB 13: The Show - (PS3, PSV)
• 05/03 - Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3
• 05/03 - Tomb Raider
• 12/03 - God of War: Ascension
• 26/03 - Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel
• 26/03 - The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
• 26/03 - BioShock Infinite

April 2013

• 19/04 - Injustice: Gods Among Us
• 23/04 - Dead Island: Riptide
• 23/04 - Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
• 30/04 - Soul Sacrifice - (PSV)

May 2013

• 01/05 - Remember Me
• 07/05 - The Last of Us

June 2013

• 30/06 - Kingdom Under Fire II
• Q2 2013 - Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
• Q2 2013 - Fuse
• Q2 2013 - Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory
• Q2 2013 – Mortal Kombat: Legacy 2

August 2013

• 20/08 - Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist

September 2013

• 17/09 - Grand Theft Auto V
• 17/09 - Killzone: Mercenary - (PSV)
• Q3 2013 - Destiny

DECEMBER 2013

• 31/12 – Dark Souls 2 

TBA 2013

• Q2 2013 – Kingdom Hearts 3
• Q4 2013 - Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee New N’ Tasty! - (PS3, PSV)
• TBA 2013 - Beyond: Two Souls
• TBA 2013 - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
• TBA 2013 - Defiance
• TBA 2013 - Dragon Age III: Inquisition
• TBA 2013 - DUST 514
• TBA 2013 - Earth Defense Force 2025
• TBA 2013 - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
• TBA 2013 - God Mode
• TBA 2013 - Lego Marvel Super Heroes - (PS3, PSV)
• TBA 2013 - Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
• TBA 2013 - Lost Planet 3
• TBA 2013 - Prey 2
• TBA 2013 - Rainbow Moon - (PSV)
• TBA 2013 - Sacred 3
• TBA 2013 - Star Trek: The Game
• TBA 2013 - Star Wars: 1313
• TBA 2013 - Tales of Xillia
• TBA 2013 - Tearaway - (PSV)
• TBA 2013 - Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Patriots
• TBA 2013 - Watch Dogs
• TBA 2013 – One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 – (PS3, PSV)

December 2014

• TBA 2014 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - (PS4)

TBA

• TBA - BioShock Vita - (PSV)
• TBA - Doom 4
• TBA - Final Fantasy Type-0 - (PSP)
• TBA - Final Fantasy Versus XIII
• TBA - Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes
• TBA - Mistborn: Birthright
• TBA - The Last Guardian
• TBA - XCOM
• TBA – Mortal Kombat 10 – (PS4)
• TBA – Killzone 4 – (PS3, PSV, PS4)

According to the report, Sony has sold a combined total of 5.7 million handhelds during this fiscal year (April 1, 2012 –December 31, 2012). During the same time period, a total of 23.4 million units of software were sold across both handhelds.

Due to slowing sales of the PSP and sluggish PS Vita sales, Sony has changed their sale expectations drastically. Originally, Sony hoped to sell 16 million PSPs and PS Vitas during the fiscal year. This figure has now been reduced to 7 million. For comparison, Sony reduced projections to 10 million last quarter.

Sony recognizes the slow penetration of the PS Vita and is looking to address this problem by offering an attractive lineup of software.

The company stated in their report:

“In the digital imaging and the game businesses, which are positioned as core areas of the electronics businesses along with the mobile businesses, the shrinking market for compact digital cameras, due to the expansion of the smartphone market, and the slow penetration of the PlayStation Vita portable entertainment platform are recognized as particularly important issues. Sony is working to improve profitability through reinforcement of its high value added products that are differentiated by the use of highly competitive image sensors developed by Sony. In the game business, Sony is working to expand sales and operating income through the introduction of an attractive software lineup and through offering game software on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.”

Thus far, titles like Killzone Mercenary and Tearaway are planned to release this year on the PS Vita. Expect more PS Vita titles to be announced at E3 2013 in June.

Below is the game release guide for North America. There are 66 games in all.

April 2012

• 04/03 – Devil May Cry HD Collection (PS3)
• 04/03 – Pro Angler Moves (PS3)
• 04/10 – 4 in 1 Action Pack (PS3)
• 04/17 – Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat (PS3)
• 04/17 – Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention (PSVita)
• 04/24 – Prototype 2 (PS3)

May 2012

• 05/01 -Mortal Kombat (PSVita)
• 05/01 – Sniper Elite V2 (PS3)
• 05/08 – StarHawk (PS3)
• 05/15 – Game of Thrones (PS3)
• 05/15 – Max Payne 3 (PS3)
• 05/22 – Atelier Meruru: Alchemist of Arland 3 (PS3)
• 05/22 – Dragon’s Dogma (PS3)
• 05/22 – Sorcery (PS3)
• 05/22 – Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (PS3)
• 05/29 – Resistance: Burning Skies (PSVita)
• 05/31 – Silent Hill: Book of Memories (PSVita)

June 2012

• 06/12 – Gravity Rush (PSVita)
• 06/12 – Gungnir: Mayari no Gunshin to Eiyuu Sensou (PSP)
• 06/12 – Lollipop Chainsaw (PS3)
• 06/26 – Darksiders II (PS3)
• 06/26 – LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (PS3)
• 06/26 – Record of Agarest War2 (PS3)
• 06/26 – Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (PS3)
• 06/26 – Spec Ops: The Line (PS3)
• 06/26 – The Amazing Spider-Man (PS3)
• 06/30 – Inversion (PS3)
• 06/2012 – Brothers In Arms: Furious 4 (PS3)
• 06/2012 – The Testament of Sherlock Holmes (PS3)

July 2012

• 07/03 – Anarchy Reigns (PS3)
• 07/10 – NCAA Football 13 (PS3)
• 07/24 – Growlanser IV: Over Reloaded (PSP)

August 2012

• 08/07 – Persona 4: Arena (PS3)
• 08/28 – Madden NFL 13 (PS3, PSVita)
• 08/28 – Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (PS3)

September 2012

• 09/04 – Far Cry 3 (PS3)
• 09/18 – Borderlands 2 (PS3)
• 09/25 – Dead or Alive 5 (PS3)
• 09/2012 – Attouteki Yuugi: Mugen Souls (PS3)

October 2012

• 10/01 – Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (PS3)
• 10/02 – Outdoors Unlimited (PS3)
• 10/02 – Resident Evil 6 (PS3)
• 10/16 – Bioshock Infinite (PS3)
• 10/23 – Medal of Honor: Warfighter (PS3)
• 10/30 – Assassin’s Creed III (PS3)

December 2012

• TBA 2012 – Grand Theft Auto V (PS3)
• TBA2012 – LittleBigPlanet Karting (PS3)
• TBA 2012 – Aliens: Colonial Marines (PS3)
• TBA 2012 – Grand Knights History (PSP)
• TBA 2012 – Ninokuni: Shiroki Seihai no Joou (PS3)
• TBA 2012 – Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (PSP)
• TBA 2012 – UnchainBlades ReXX (PSP)

TBA 2013

• TBA 2013 – Devil’s 3rd (PS3)
• TBA 2013 – Homefront 2 (PS3)
• TBA 2013 – Lost Planet 3 (PS3)
• TBA 2013 – Metro: Last Light (PS3)
• TBA 2013 – Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Patriots (PS3)
• TBA 2013 – XCOM (PS3)

TBA

• TBA – Final Fantasy Type-o (PSP)
• TBA – Final Fantasy Versus XIII (PS3)
• TBA – Hitman Absolution (PS3)
• TBA – Metal Gear Rising: Reveangeance (PS3)
• TBA – Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (PSVita)
• TBA – Street Fighter X Tekken (PSVita)
• TBA – The Last Guardian (PS3)
• TBA – The Last of Us (PS3)

Comment down below, and tell us what games you are looking forward to.