The first of four avatar packs, each featuring three or four LittleBigPlanet-themed icons that can represent you on the PlayStation 3 cross media bar and friends list, are going for $8.00 HK in Hong Kong, which translates to about $1.00 USD. In Europe, individual premium avatars are priced at £0.20/€0.25 each. Not a bad deal, should you have a dollar or two rotting in your Wallet.

On the other hand, it's a formerly free thing now monetized, something Sony seems more and more interested in doing lately. Good for business, bad for people who want things given to them gratis.

The new waterlogged Pirates of the Caribbean level pack will hit PlayStation 3s on December 22, priced at £4.79 or €5.99 or US $5.99 or AUS $ 9.95 or NZD $11.50, depending on what you've got in your wallet. And the pack comes with... deep breath... 5 new levels, 1 new costume, 4 new music tracks, 1 new level background, 8 materials, 14 decorations, 27 objects, 133 stickers and 11 new PlayStation Trophies.

That's 204 things! Less than $0.03 USD per thing!

There's a trailer down below, with a handy link to the official LittleBigPlanet web site that should answer most of your questions about how the addition of water affects your Sackboy. There are also new screenshots, artwork and a general feeling of warmth. Soak it in!

Pirates of the Caribbean Premium Level Kit [LittleBigPlanet.com]

There are 2 silver and 9 bronze trophies becoming available with the new content, reports PS3Trophies.org. They will raise the total trophies to 70. Pricing and release date still are unknown.

Here's the list:

Bronze
• PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN Booty Master - Collect all of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN prize bubbles
• Beast Slayer - Destroy the KRAKEN boss
• Ace Port Royal - Ace Port Royal
• Ace Pirate Town - Ace Pirate Town
• Ace The Frigate - Ace The Frigate
• Ace Cursed Bay - Ace Cursed Bay
• Ace The Kraken!!! - Ace The Kraken!!!
• Tributary - Publish a level containing WATER
• Salty Dog - Complete 20 community leves that contain WATER

Silver
• HMS Interceptor - Complete the race in Cursed Bay with at least 4000 points left on the clock
• The Bends - Achieve a Score of 7000 in the Diving for Treasure Survival Challenge

DLC Added: LittleBigPlanet [PS3Trophies.org]

How did Media Molecule get wrapped up in the Spike TV Video Game Award statuette designing process? Well, Spike TV asked them. The developers won "Studio of the Year" honors at Spike's award show in 2008.

Media Molecule's design signals the start of a new tradition, with this year's award winner planned to tackle a new design for next year's show, which is based on a sculpt originally created by vinyl toy experts Kid Robot. That means next year's VGA prize will be designed by a "Studio of the Year" nominee—Infinity Ward, Naughty Dog, Rocksteady Studios or Valve—should things go as planned.

To see who's going to get all these colorful monkeys, turn your television knob to whatever channel Spike TV is on next Saturday, December 12.

Assassin's Creed II protagonist Ezio Auditore de Firenze looked good in white, but not nearly as good as Sackboy does. The complete outfit goes up for sale today for LittleBigPlanet on the PlayStation Network, allowing LBP players to deck their tiny avatars out in Ezio's cloak and cowl, breeches and boots, tunic and cape, and most importantly, his hidden blade glove.

The whole ensemble is a steal at $1.99, and even if you don't like Assassin's Creed II, you could probably fashion a hell of a Moon Knight costume from the pieces, and who doesn't love Moon Knight?

Assassin's Creed II Costume [Media Molecule - Thanks Ursus-Veritas!]

Until the new Leerdammer update hits on Monday, the only way to create LittleBigPlanet levels with your friends was to gather around the television set or coordinate online and have one person do all the work. Come Monday, that will no longer be a factor, and friends from all around the world will be able to join together online and craft the sort of sublime, disjointed experience that comes from too many cooks in one pot. It's a feature fans have been waving their arms about for, and now it's almost here. Rejoice!

Leerdammer also adds location-based matchmaking to the mix, meaning the game will first look for folks whose connections don't suck before pairing you up with some guy on the other side of the planet.

All this plus more profile space, an auto-reject play invitation setting, and more, all in Monday's update. You can check out the full details over at Media Molecule's home on the web.

LittleBigPlanet Leerdammer Update [Media Molecule - Thanks Ursus-Veritas]

Photographer and NeoGAFFer Brian Moreno found the only way to make Lady Gaga's video more absurd. He definitely deserves Kudos. Failing that, regular granola bars will do.

Little Bad Romance [YouTube via NeoGAF - Thanks Lorand!]

In some ways, you can see that the game's final aesthetic has a lot in common with its formative sketches. But in others - the ones that look like French cartoons from the early 90s - the furry, felty world of LittleBigPlanet seems a world away

Like what you see? There's plenty more at the link below.

Concept Art [LittleBigPlanet, via Boing Boing]

Consider the annoyance of leaving the house to invest in a UMD a thing of the past as of tomorrow. Yes, the PlayStation Store will update a little earlier than normal in North America this week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving by gorging on turkeys and LittleBigPlanet PSP levels.

"LittleBigPlanet" being mentioned in the same sentence as "Barack Obama" — and of video games being included in the President's push for new ways to inspire kids to learn science, technology, engineering and math — sat well with Entertainment Software Association chief Michael Gallagher today.

"This is a very, very good day for the gaming industry," he told Kotaku. "This is a significant leap into maturity and toward acceptance."

Earlier in the day, Gallagher literally sat one row behind former astronaut Sally Ride and right near the former chairman of Intel and the current head of Sesame Street at a Washington, D.C. press conference where Obama announced plans for "Educate To Innovate," a series of mostly privately-funded initiatives to improve kids' knowledge of and enthusiasm for math and science.

The new programs could be the gaming industry's reach for the stars, to build on an astronomical analogy Gallagher said he used with White House officials as the new programs were taking shape. "Much as the space program inspired a generation of children to go into engineering," he said. "Today's learners are inspired by video games." Those who make games, in other words, have the capacity to influence America's youth toward scientific and technological greatness.

The gaming aspect of the Obama program involves two contests, both geared toward making games that will help children learn science, technology, engineering or math, so-called STEM topics. One contest involves the design of LittleBigPlanet levels. The other challenges developers to make browser games for children of different ages. Both embody what Gallagher says are the two defining characteristics of the gaming industry: Innovation and Competition.

But today was unusual. The video game industry doesn't often get a call from the White House, as the ESA did three months ago, to launch the programs announced today. Rare is the Administration that refers to games at all in a positive way.

Perhaps equally rare is an Administration that even understands games. Gallagher, who worked in the George W. Bush White House said that the "communication gap was a lot smaller" dealing with Obama officials. Some of the current President's speech writers, after all, recently stopped by an ESA reception to play The Beatles Rock Band, he said.

The ESA has also worked to promote the reputation of games and has enjoyed the findings of groups such as the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which announced earlier this year that it saw games playing a key role in the future of education.

All of this may have helped produce a climate that led the White House to think positively about games.

"There is a preponderance of belief that we're a force for good and quality, as opposed to being stigmatized," Gallagher said.

So it wasn't a complete shock to the ESA that, three months ago, the White House contacted the group to invite the gaming industry to get involved in the President's education initiative.

From that request emerged the STEM National Video Game Competition, the browser game challenge, which will involve not just the ESA and the Information Technology Industry Council (an advocacy group for tech companies), but also Microsoft and Games4Change, a group dedicated to supporting games that serve a social good.

Anyone will be able to make games for the contest, vying for a portion of the total prize of $300,000. Even more alluring may be Gallagher's belief that the winning entries, which will be announced in June at E3, could become part of school curricula as soon as next school year. "We could be reaching and saving today's learners," he said, not waiting for a future generation and giving up already on today's kids.

"The objective is learning, not teaching," Gallagher said of the games he hopes people will make. He explained that a popular belief among educators is that teaching — the dispensing of information — is over-emphasized in school programs and that more attention needs to be paid toward learning — what goes on in a child's mind. It's learning where games have such strong potential, Gallagher argued, because the medium already has proven it has the ability to captivate a child's imagination and tap his or her curiosity.

The other program announced today involves Sony providing 1,000 PlayStation 3s and copies of LittleBigPlanet as part of an effort backed by the MacArthur Foundation to encourage learning through digital means.

Despite what Gallagher referred to as commendable efforts by Sony and Microsoft to get involved, they are just two gaming-related companies, the only two that were part of today's news. Gallagher says that is merely a function of how quickly the new programs came together and is confident that other gaming companies will get involved in similar efforts.

"We should be proud of this moment because it shows a maturity of our industry," Gallagher told Kotaku today. "It shows an acceptance of our industry as vital to our country's ability to meeting significant challenges." If video games can help America get better at science, technology, engineering and math, Gallagher would consider that a job well done.

[PIC]

President Barack Obama announced the overarching directive that the gaming plans are part of at a White House press conference that furthers the Administration's commitment to its STEM program, an initiative for focusing on science, technology engineering and math education. The new push is dubbed "Educate to Innovate."

Among the participating private-backed initiatives that are part of the program, according to a run-down in the New York Times, is a two-year focus on science on Sesame Street, a commercial-free science programming commitment by the Discovery Channel, a new website backed by Time Warner Cable, as well as a variety of video game initiatives.

"Our industry's lifeblood is the energy and innovation of new, emerging developers," Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, the industry's lobbying group, said in a press release today. "To create the next generation's epic titles and incredibly immersive storylines, we need America's youth to have strategic and analytic thinking skills along with complex problem solving abilities. It is my hope that it will produce games that will have a lasting impact on the STEM skills our nation's students so desperately need."

The Sony LittleBigPlanet initiative, Game Changers, is part of a $2 million 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition funded by the MacArthur foundation. It involves Sony donating 1000 PlayStation 3s and copies of LittleBigPlanet to libraries and community organizations. Participants will strive to create levels that involve science, technology, engineering and math.

A second program, called the Stem National Video Game Competition, was also announced. It is a three-pronged $300,000 contest encouraging entrants to create the best browser video games that teach the STEM disciplines for a trio of age ranges: 4-8, 8-12 and 12-16. This competition is intended to reach "historically underserved populations including girls and minority students," according to an ESA press release. Specifics for this contest will be announced in early 2010, with winners showcased at E3 in June.

The gaming initiatives announced today are backed by the Information Technology Industry Council, an advocacy group. Microsoft and the Games4Change group are also both involved in these plans, according to the ESA release.

More details about both contests will be announced in the next few weeks, according to the ESA.

According to PlayStation.com's Hong Kong presence, as spotted by Siliconera, LittleBigPlanet costumes that ape Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Werehog, Tails, Dr. Robotnik (aka Eggman) and Knuckles will be available later this year. December 17, at least in Hong Kong, to be exact.

While we'd PlayStation.com to be right about the particulars, we're checking in with Sony and Media Molecule to see when we can enjoy dressing our Sackboys up as Sonic and his friends on our PS3s.

LittleBigPlanet Sonic the Hedgehog Costumes (English/Chinese Ver.) [PlayStation Hong Kong via Siliconera]

"We'd never want to do that," said Danny Leaver, adding that a sequel would fragment the game's community. Producer Martin Lynagh said that the game's existing strategy of updates and DLC - and both have been robust enough - will be status quo.

"I think what you've seen so far from LittleBigPlanet, that's the way it's going to continue," Lynagh told Critical Gamer.

There's this and much more in an extensive interview, the first part of which was published today.

A LittleBigPlanet 2 Would Be "Counterproductive" Say Media Molecule [Critical Gamer via Evil Avatar]

That would be the launch ready Space Suit Sackboy Costume, re-releasing the week of November 5 for LittleBigPlanet latecomers. Media Molecule's also letting PlayStation 3 owners eat cake, prepping a candle-headed, slice-suited Sackboy, seen floating in space above.

Both are, thankfully, free!

Happy Birthday LittleBigPlanet! [Media Molecule]

It's a year old, but it's still terrifyingly adorable. The pumpkin head costume piece returns to LBP on Thursday, when it will be available for free download on the PlayStation Network. You might have missed it when it was released last year as I did, not getting the game until later due to the recall that saw it pulled from the shelves because of offensive lyrics in one of the music tracks.

Return of the Pumpkin Head Halloween Costume! [Media Molecule]

What else, what else. Oh, here's an LBP bento done by everybody's favorite game-bento maker, AnnaTheRed, just to round out what is basically a housekeeping post. But there you go, Nov. 17, and that's from SCEA, not some retailer's database. Official. And, uh, bon appetit, I guess.

LittleBigPlanet: Sack it to Me – "Watchmen DLC + Bento Box" Edition [PlayStation.Blog]

Go here, punch the giant "REDEEM" button (be patient) to generate your code, and then redeem that through the PlayStation Network and, poof, Sackboy's ready to romp around in his own Wagnerian opera.

LittleBigPlanet Norse Mythology Code [PlayStation.com via GayGamer.net]

This video comes from Sony's Tokyo Game Show presentation during which motion control support was revealed for LBP as well as Resident Evil 5 (video of that is here). We reported that the game would also support, EyePet, Flower, Pain, High Velocity Bowling "and more". The slide at the end of the demonstration also mentions Sing and Draw, Champions of Time, Motion Party, The Shoot and Tower.

[TGS 09] PS3 モーションコントローラ リトルビッグプラネット LBP [EyeToy] [YouTube, thanks John R.]