Peter Moore and his four bodyguards were kidnapped in May of 2007 by what is understood to be an obscure militia known as the Islamic Shia Resistance. Over the course of the following months three of his bodyguards were killed, with the fourth presumed dead. After two years of rough treatment, his captors changed their tune in June of 2009. According to BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, from then on, Moore was given access to some more luxurious amenities.

Frank Gardner said that since June, Mr Moore had been given markedly better treatment by his captors, effectively placed under house arrest, with en suite facilities, access to satellite TV, a laptop - though not online - and a PlayStation.

What a surreal experience that must have been for the man. Two years of hopeless bleak despair, his bodyguards killed, and then all of the sudden he might as well be hanging out at my apartment for six months. Part of me wonders about the psychological effects the rapid shift in treatment would have on a man, and is glad to see that Mr. Moore will be returning home after such a long, terrible ordeal.

The other part of me wonders what games he played.

A third part of me would like to point out that he received access to a PlayStation, and not an Xbox 360 or Wii. I wouldn't call the Islamic Shia Resistance Sony fanboys, mainly because my name is on this post. Those of you hiding behind screen names in the comments section are free to savor the sweet release of anonymity.

Not to make light of a serious situation. I'm just trying to wrap my head around an extremist organization that supplies a video game system to a hostage. The world is a very strange place indeed.

Freed hostage Peter Moore tells of time in captivity [NNC]

Previously, Sony Computer Entertainment's distribution arm and that of the rest of the company were entirely separate operations. In 2010, though, they'll be rolled into the one unit.

You may ask why this hasn't always been the case, but remember, this is Sony. Units operating in blissful, counter-productive isolation is one of the main reasons the company is in such dire straits in the first place.

Sony to Combine International Distribution Operations [Business Week]

"There are IP clearances and rights we no longer have (particularly pertaining to voicework/soundtrack I believe) so our IP management group has told us it can't be re-released," Svensson said. "I'm sorry as it's one of the ones I really wanted to see be put back up.

"So if you still have that PS1 Rival Schools disc in your collection, it's unfortunately going to be the only way that gets played for the forseeable future."

This does not apply only to the PSN, but all platforms, it seems. Bummer.

No Rival Schools on PSN now, no Rival Schools on PSN ever [Dtoid]

One part of that select group is the PlayStation Museum, which offers a fascinating little making of and post mortem on Pac-Man Ghost Zone, a fully 3D adventure starring the dot-hungry blob created by Toru Iwatani. It's a little rough around the edges in the early working version that PlayStation Museum played, closer to a Bubsy 3D than a Super Mario 64, as unkind as that sounds.

It's actually a sharp looking little game that Namco never got out the door, partly due to management level snafus, according to former Pac-Man Ghost Zone staffers.

Hit up PlayStation Museum for a look behind the scenes and video of a game you've likely never seen before.

Pac-Man Ghost Zone [PlayStation Museum]

Yes, it's hard to remember now, but there once was a time, before WipeOut, before Tomb Raider, before PaRappa, that Sony entering the gaming business didn't sound like such a sure bet.

There was a failed attempt at a CD-based system in partnership with Nintendo. There was the fact Sony were an unproven force in a market dominated by Nintendo and Sega. And the PlayStation's approach was all so adult.

Time, of course, has proven any doubts unfounded. The original PlayStation blew people's minds from the moment it launched, and its successor - the PS2 - is still the #1 selling video game console of all time. So it too did OK.

True, things haven't quite been the same for the company since, with both the PSP and PS3 failing to achieve the same level of market dominance. Oh well. There's still plenty of time left for both platforms (well, at least the PS3, which has been coming along in great strides all year), and besides, today isn't a day for nit-picking.

It's a day for clinking glasses. Happy birthday, PlayStation. Think it's safe to say the video game business wouldn't have been the same without you.

(History buffs/Sony fans might want to check out this celebratory site, which is quite neat. It even has the ducks!)

Ah yes, the 90's. The console wars were so much better back then, when companies weren't afraid to create obviously fake protest groups in order to sell their product. If only more video game marketing teams would figure out the joy of anti-advertising.

Thanks to Morris for bringing back fond memories.

Be sure to stay tuned to Kotaku for live, breaking coverage of the keynote set to discuss the strategy for Sony Computer Entertainment for 2009.

Following the keynote executives from Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Sony and Namco Bandai will lead a panel discussion about the strategies and visions of game develoeprs in the "global era."

On board for that discussion are Haruhiro Tsujimoto
, President & COO, CAPCOM Kazumi Kitaue
, Vice President, Corporate Officer, Konami Digital Entertainment; Yoichi Wada, 
President & Representative Director, SQUARE ENIX; Shuhei Yoshida
, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios and Shin Unozawa, 
President & CEO, NAMCO BANDAI Games.

The doors open to the press this morning to the Tokyo Game Show floor as well, so expect an evening and night chockful of news, impressions and fun photos.

They also won't be sold to the general public. Ron Eagle, the director of product publicity for the PlayStation, said he got a call from Nike, who wanted to make him some PlayStation-themed shoes to say thanks for past collaboration and support. Eagle is a self-described "shoe guy," so of course the idea fired him up.

When I got the call and was told that they wanted to make a shoe, of course the first thing I asked was … what kind? They told me they were working on a new training shoe, one that would be technically very advanced, but would harken back to some of the great training shoes from their past, like the ones worn by Bo Jackson and John McEnroe. As soon as they said the word McEnroe – I was completely sold as the original Air Trainer 1, is one of my all time favorite shoe designs and something I remember wearing to school.

It started from there, asking me about favorite colors, and anything that I did or didn't like. The designers are just so good at taking input and making really slick creative choices, that when the line drawings come over, I'm just stunned. As you already know, we like to do things that haven't been done or are totally unique and that was one of the things that the guys at Nike knew that they wanted to do when they asked me what I liked.

Sony and Nike teamed up on highly sought-after Air Force One designs in 2006 and in 2009. Eagle said in those efforts, "we were working toward something with the other shoes. ... This being a "thank you" it could have been so many things – yet the guys at Nike got that it should be unique and it makes it very special to me because of that."

Doesn't sound like they'll hit eBay anytime soon. You can see more of the designs over at the link.

The NEW PlayStation Air Nike Trainer 1 [Sole Collector, via TheShoeGame, thanks Pete A.]

But after all of the time spent in Borderlands, collecting weapons, finding upgrades, earning experience all of the way to level 17, I'm still undecided about whether I actually like the game.

One thing I do know: I keep coming back to it.

Gearbox's Borderlands isn't due out until this October for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, but I've spent the past few weeks playing through an introductory section of the game as the game's sniper character, Mordecai.

Moredecai is a specialist in long-range shots, of course, and eventually earns a winged-pet named Bloodwing. As you make your way through the game as the sniper you have the opportunity to upgrade your character or Bloodwing. Your character's upgrades include things like increasing the damage your weapons deal and making it easier to hit enemies. The upgrades for Bloodwing allow him to attack faster and more targets and increase the sort and amount of loot dropped by his victims.

My time with the game was limited to the areas I've already mentioned and single-player gaming only. While the game walked me through the early training missions, it didn't deliver any sort of plot. I'm told this is a product of it being the press demo and that the retail game will open up with some backstory.

What I did get a great sense of was the game plays and feels, and how missions are dealt out and completed.

The controls are fairly tight, allowing you to play this hybrid action-role-playing game as a first-person shooter. Aiming, sniping, movement are perfectly suited for quick pick-up and play for any fans of shooters.

The ability to hold a number of weapons and quickly hot-swap between them is another nice bonus that will appeal to fans of running and gunning.

The damage modeling, too, is a big plus, allowing you pinpoint precision in how you take an enemy down. I was able to snipe off a bandits foot from across a map. Yes, that means there is plenty of gibs and gore. And for awhile I was satisfied running around shooting things, playing Borderlands essentially like a first-person shooter map packed with bots.

But overtime that grew a little dull. The enemies aren't altogether that intelligent, and the spawn points can be, no matter how random the results, very predictable.

So I jumped into a few missions and the game really started to trudge. Why would I want to run out and hunt Borderlands version of feral dogs? Do I really need to clear out the gangs in this dust bowl? Why do I care about the garden of an amiable loner?

Without much of a plot to anchor the missions too, I was losing interest quickly. Fortunately, I eventually started to hunt down some missing logs and journals for a couple of missions and the audio recordings began to fill me in a bit on the backstory.

Perhaps, there will be a reason to make me want to move forward in what now seems like a mostly blank canvas, but this build certainly doesn't provide that inspiration.

Don't get me wrong, I've been playing the hell out of it. Enough to finish every single available mission in the game and level up to 17, something I expect isn't typical of the relatively confined demo.

What keeps me intrigued, makes me want to come back again and again are all of those weapons. Those glorious weapons. There are, by some accounts, more than 3 million variations of weapons in the games. And some do some pretty amazing things. All of them have great, randomly generated names like my machine gun "Bone Shredder", my electrified-bullet shooting sniper rifle "LB20 Static Wrath" and my brutal six shooter "MAL31-B Blast Law".

While the other weapons are pretty neat, and took me quite a time to find, it's Blast Law that renewed my interest in the demo just when I thought I had had enough.

Prior to stumbling across this seemingly innocuous revolver I had to plug away at enemies for a few seconds with Bone Shredder before taking them down. Out of curiosity, mostly because Blast Law's name is written out in a rare purple, I decided to check it out.

The first thing I noticed was that this tiny pistol has a pretty hefty zoom feature: A must for any sniper. It also has a very fast fire rate and reload rate. Then I aimed the gun at a dog-like Skag and pulled the trigger. The creature disappeared in a cloud of red mist. Holy shit!

Amazed by the tiny gun's shocking stopping power, I made my way over to a known bandit spawn point to try it out on some larger, more crafty targets.

Pygmy bandit: Mist

Lunatic bandit: blown in half

Skulking, armed bandit: Legs blown off with a low shot.

Finally, brutish hulking chain-gun toting bad guy: Three shots then dead.

What was beginning to feel routine and a bit monotonous suddenly had new life and I spent another few hours and gained another level playing around with my new weapon.

With another 3 million or so weapons to discover, I imagine Borderlands will, story or no story, manage to keep me engaged for quite awhile.

Here's hoping there's a bit more to the final game though to satisfy more than my bloodlust.

In addition to pumping out re-ratings for titles like Tomb Raider and Bloody Roar, PSone Classics already released, there are also new appearances from PlayStation era highlights like Um Jammer Lammy and Oddworld: Abe's Exodus. Good news, especially for the nostalgic PSPgo owner.

Here's the latest list of new PSone Classics candidates. Watch for them on a PlayStation Store update near you.

• Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
• Cool Boarders 3
• International Track & Field
• Oddworld: Abe's Exodus
• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
• Pandemonium!
• Syphon Filter 2
• Um Jammer Lammy

PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai has told The Times "we are slating it for spring of next year". "It" being the motion controller. "One of the things is that we just don't want to put out the controller", he says. "We need a great software that supports the controller at launch. It's something that we've been working on for the longest time."

Wonder if he means one or two pieces of genuine software, or an EyeToy-like pack-in of party games?

Sony boss reveals plans for PlayStation [The Times]

The new model heralds a slew of changes for the PlayStation 3 brand, include a change in the official all-caps PLAYSTATION 3 brand to the PlayStation 3 everyone was using anyway, and a new PS3 logo, as seen etched on the side of the new console.

The new console will come standard with the recently announced firmware 3.0. A vertical stand will be made available for purchase to make the system vertical, and it will also house a Bravia Sync feature, allowing users to control the PS3 with their Bravia TV remote.

The final change is the removal of the Install Other OS feature, meaning no LINUX installs on the smaller unit. The release states that "The new PS3 system will focus on delivering games and other entertainment content, and users will not be able to install other Operating Systems to the new PS3 system."

The trademark specifically protects P.S. Thanks—presumably short for PlayStation Thanks—against "entertainment services" for an "incentive rewards program geared toward quantifying, identifying and motivating top consumer base with the goal of promotion and sale of video game hardware and software." That could mean a replacement for the phased out PlayStation Underground program or something as potentially rewarding on par with Nintendo's Club Nintendo.

Since the trademark points out a focus on the "top consumer base," a P.S. Thanks program may go after the most serious PlayStation fan, the type willing to pursue Platinum Trophies and take up arms in the Sony Defense Force, possibly. We just hope it means some sort of yearly novelty hat giveaway.

P.S. THANKS [USPTO]

That is from Daniel Esparza, the former mayor of a French village called Saint-Laurent de la Cabrerisse, uttered to a reporter filing a story that is partially about about Esparaza's expertise in boar-hunting.

The quote, which explains what a local passion it is to hunt sanglier (or wild boar) continues: "I've passed on my knowledge of nature to Ludo since he was young."

Ludo is Esparaza's son. Father, son and reporter are on a hunt as part of the reporter's travel article about vacationing in Saint-Laurent de la Cabrerisse, where rural activities like boar-hunting, wine-making and even something called smell lotto are encouraged for tourists to try. And the writer continues:

Ludo - who says he sometimes smears himself with boar shit to creep close to his prey - seems a good man to hide behind. At midnight, after a final "savage cherry" liqueur that renders accurate shooting impossible, I climb into his battered van. Ludo makes a strangling noise, hinting at the animal's fate, asks if I'm "ready for adventure", and then, bar the odd grunt, doesn't speak for two hours. I'm boar hunting with Obelix.

Does it really matter if they got any boar? Ludo sounds like he's having a fine life, even if it didn't include a PlayStation in his childhood.

Live high on the hog in the Languedoc [The Observer] [PIC]

In Gold Rush a team of players try to grab and move a treasure across the map without getting taken out. Looks kind of fun.

That Michael Jackson signed PlayStation is now for sale, seemingly authentic in its scrawling upon by the late King of Pop. While the starting bid is not ludicrous, the Buy It Now price on eBay certainly is. The seller is willing to part with it right now for $1.5 million.

It's doubly special, according to the seller, being the 1,000,001st PlayStation to roll off the assembly line. Funny, that somehow sounds a little less believable than the Moonwalker actually scribbling "I Love You, Michael Jackson" on a game console.

Hand signed Michael Jackson Playstation with proof [eBay - thanks, Zeuxis!]

New Katamari Forever Trailer! [Playstation Blog]

Hand-crafted and available from hand-crafted megastore Etsy, the case itself is $20. The controller, an extra $7. Premium price for an iPhone case, sure, but then you don't often get the chance to buy soft, adorable cases in the shape of a PlayStation.

I Dare You to Not Buy This PlayStation iPhone Case Immediately [Gizmodo]

The PS3 had access to Hulu thanks to the console browser's flash support, leading some to wonder if this was a glitch or a block caused by the firmware. But do not adjust your set, reports Engadget:

The Hulu TOS was just updated as of June 26, and although we haven't found any PS3-specific passages, changing a browser's user-string to match the console reveals it is definitely being specifically blocked.

Hulu to PlayStation 3 Browsers: "This Video is not Available on Your Platform" [Engadget; image from FormatWarCentral]