Sony has today announced that the European iteration of its PlayStation 3 console has been reconfigured to exclude internal hardware dedicated to backwards compatibility, a measure taken in order to reduce manufacturing costs.

The revelation, 28 days before the hardware arrives in Europe, means that playing PS2 and PS1 games on PS3 will be handled by a software-led emulation solution, which has the knock-on effect of reducing the amount of legacy PlayStation titles that will function on PS3 at launch.

David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said: “PS3 is first and foremost a system that excels in playing games specifically designed to exploit the power and potential of the PS3 system. Games designed for PS3 offer incredible graphics quality, stunning gameplay and massively improved audio and video fidelity that is simply not achievable with PS and PS2 games. Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, truly taking advantage of this exciting technology.”

If you've ever wanted to write about videogames in a professional capacity, or you already do so and you're looking to develop your career, now may be the time to do something about it.

Edge is expanding its editorial team, and is seeking a new writer and deputy editor.

Full details of the requirements for applicants can be found here (writer) and here (deputy editor). You'll need to be quick, however, because the vacancies' closing dates are February 26 and March 1 respectively.

Good luck.

With Boštjan Cadež's Line Rider notching up in excess of 16 million hits, generating over 11,000 user-generated YouTube videos, and snaring the interest of inXile Entertainment, which is in the process of creating fully fledged Wii and DS versions, it was inevitable that imitators would follow.

Enter Free Rider, which takes Line Rider's premise and wraps it even more tightly around the blueprint set out by the likes of Elastomania to create something that is more purposely game-like, with the player taking control of a motorbike in pursuit of stars positioned as cunningly as the deviousness of the level creator's mind will allow.

The best bit? Probably the option to share your own levels with others by simply copying and pasting them as text files. Paste only your best efforts in the comments section below.

A mention of the upcoming Independent Games Festival is well overdue on these pages, so let's do something about that with a list of the finalists in the IGF Student Competition, whose winner will receive $2,500 at the IGF Awards during the Game Developers Conference on March 7:

And Yet It Moves ("Basically a mixture between a jump and run and a puzzle game, with the extra ability to rotate the world")

The Ball Of Bastards ("An online world that displays an overdrawn image of reality and transfers real violence into virtual space")

Base Invaders ("A cartoony action-oriented strategy game which pits the crafty, trap utilizing player against hordes of dim-witted invaders bent on destroying the his Tower")

Euclidean Crisis ("A multiplayer real-time strategy game played using a touchscreen stylus and voice commands")

We invited you to put questions to Bethesda, the American developer behind some of gaming's best-loved RPGs, and you came through looking for answers on the differences between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the likelihood of Bethesda moving into MMO development, whether or not the future of videogaming is episodic-shaped, and more.

The man charged with providing the answers is Pete Hines, vice president of public relations and marketing at Bethesda.

Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Look out for a new 'You interview...' later this week.

(Screenshots from forthcoming The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion expansion pack Shivering Isles; click for larger versions.)

Electronic Arts may hold a reputation in certain circles as a purveyor of polished-but-exploitative sports simulations, but this is to conveniently ignore the fact that its upcoming roster includes the likes of Crysis, Spore and the first proper Spielberg-approved videogame, while its back catalogue is studded with landmark releases.

It may take a read of Gamasutra's excellent 'We See Farther – A History Of Electronic Arts', however, to remind yourself of the true richness of the company's near-25-year history. This is, after all, the publisher that pioneered the concept of crediting game creators by placing their names on the front of the packages containing their works.

Highlights? There are plenty to choose from, but many involve company founder Trip Hawkins, from his decision to enter the console hardware business with 3DO ("It seemed like the window was open") to what, apparently, was his overarching philosophy for EA ("It is not about making money, it is about making a difference").

The March edition of Edge arrives in newsagents on February 15.

Rendered in two alternative metallic-ink options, blue and gold, this month’s cover star is Solid Snake. Inside the magazine, a Metal Gear Solid feature looks back at the series from its beginnings as an MSX game and forward to the upcoming MGS4 on PlayStation 3, interviewing Hideo Kojima at his Roppongi Hills HQ in Japan.

We head offroad, too, with an extensive preview of the next Sega Rally game from Sega’s new, UK-based Racing Studio, and then across the Atlantic to catch up with ex-Shiny chief Dave Perry and discover how he’s juggling the production of a swathe of MMOs and the inception of three new companies aimed at shaking up the world of game development.

In regulars, Time Extend looks back at Super Mario Sunshine, while The Making Of… charts the development of 8bit comic-espionage classic Spy Vs Spy.

The next 'You interview...' slot is fast approaching, so now's the time to get in your questions for Bethesda Game Studios, the company behind the revered Elder Scrolls series.

Currently preparing the launch of sprawling Oblivion expansion pack Shivering Isles and putting the finishing touches to the PlayStation 3 iteration of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GameTrailers media: here), Bethesda has a back catalogue that also includes a number of other landmark RPGs, with a history dating way back to 1986, which should give you plenty of inspiration when coming up with your queries.

Send in your questions via this email address, and be sure to get them here before the 9:00 GMT deadline on Monday, February 12. (Please include your full name or preferred online moniker because we’ll be printing it alongside your question, if it's used.)

The February edition of Edge is on sale now.

This issue’s cover image sets out the stall for what’s inside, which includes a preview of Dragon Age – the PC game BioWare is calling the “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate. Then, we talk to one of the biggest names in PC game development, Gabe Newell of Valve, about the future of his company, its games and its trailblazing digital distribution system, Steam.

Continuing the PC theme, we delve deeply into the heart of the no-longer-beige box to discover where this most rapidly evolving gaming platform is headed, how it will get there, and what its users will be playing along the way.

Moving away from PCs, we look of the art of minigames, and how they fit into the trend of games becoming bigger and more durable. Meanwhile, Time Extend takes a long, hard look at Xbox title Jet Set Radio Future, and The Making Of… tackles cult Amiga adventure Moonstone.

Following on the heels of our inaugural 'You interview...' focused on Evolution Studios is this session with Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios, the company behind Xbox FPS The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and the upcoming Xbox 360/PS3 actioner The Darkness.

In the interviewee's chair is Jens Andersson, The Darkness' lead designer.

(Check back next week for another 'You interview...')

After a year out of the spotlight, a rejuvenated Lorne Lanning returns to explain why he left the videogame industry behind – and why he didn’t leave gaming...

This article was originally published as 'A rested development' in the Christmas 2006 issue of Edge (E170). To subscribe call +44 (0)870 4448466 or click here.

As co-founder (with Sherry McKenna) of Oddworld Inhabitants, Lorne Lanning steered the idiosyncratic Oddworld cycle for a decade and two hardware generations, culminating in the exceptional Stranger’s Wrath. But after hinting at the development of a new title, Citizen Siege, Oddworld Inhabitants withdrew from internal game development – choosing to focus on combining CG film and videogame projects. Citizen Siege has recently entered production under animated feature developer Vanguard, and with development of the game to follow, we talked to the reliably outspoken Lanning about gaming’s new frontiers…

You knew on Monday, of course, that Sony will be launching PlayStation 3 in Europe on March 23 at £425, a price that has caused some consternation among its potential user base, and not only because it is not a direct conversion of the hardware's Euro tag (€599, which in market terms translates as £395).

Certainly the £425 UK price compares unfavourably with rates in North America, where a PS3 can be purchased for the equivalent of £305. And those expecting a UK PS3 price reduction sooner rather than later will be disappointed, since the hardware is already being sold at a considerable loss, while cost reductions on components will be slow due to their complexity.

What of those hoping to buy into PS3 gaming via its stripped-down 20GB iteration, which officially retails in Japan at just ¥49,980 (£210)? This option simply will not be available to European consumers at launch, with SCEE stating that it will 'follow later in the year dependent on demand' – in other words, possibly not at all.

We have been advised by a source seeking to remain nameless that PlayStation 3 will "definitely launch in the UK on March 23 at £425".

Not April at £350. Not September at £400. March 23 at £425.

What sort of price is £425 for a new gaming/multimedia console? And will you be buying one at launch? If not, when? (If you already have an import machine, you're welcome to give your opinions on the PS3 experience to date, too.)

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Does it take military discipline or gamer enthusiasm to make an Edge 10/10? We talk to Bungie’s finest about working inside Microsoft and playing beyond Halo...

(Photography: Charles Peterson; click images for larger versions.)

This article was originally published as 'This Spartan Life' in the January 2007 issue of Edge (E171). To subscribe call +44 (0)870 4448466 or click here.

"Yeah, sometimes it feels like I’m still the new guy," says Bungie’s Jaime Griesemer, drumming restlessly on the conference-room table. “Like, sometimes I feel like I can just say whatever I want because they’ll just ignore me, because I’m the new guy."

Griesemer has been at the firebrand US studio since 1999. Only ten others have been there longer.

It makes no sense, because to all intents and purposes, the curly-haired, fidgety, scattershot design lead is Bungie. He’s hardly a founder member, having arrived less than a year before the Chicago independent was acquired by Microsoft to develop Halo as an Xbox launch title in 2000. And he can’t be singled out as the outstanding talent in this outstandingly talented team, although he’s tasked with preserving the precious core of the Halo experience – the infamous ‘30 seconds of fun’ that he labelled and helped to create, that freeform, looping interplay between the weapons, vehicles and shields.

Today’s Thing To Mess Around With On The Internet is Pictaps, a supremely elegant ‘happy digital toy’ by Japanese web designer Masayuki Kido.

Using simple painting and shape-creation tools, it allows you to design your own flat 2D, PaRappa-style character and let it loose on a digital dancefloor to the encouragement of a crowd of pixel-perfect clones (and the unfortunate accompaniment of some horribly repetitious beats).

Pictaps also stores creations from other users, allowing you to click through scores of contributions and gain some kind of insight into the state of the heads of internet-plaything fans across the world.

If you create something more inspiring than our not-quite-proportionally-correct ‘E’ logo (pictured), use Pictaps’ link facility and paste the URL in the comments section below. And, while you’re at Kido’s site, be sure to also have a look at another of his creations, the starkly stunning Missing Link.

Next up in our new series of 'You interview...' slots is Swedish development house Starbreeze Studios, the company behind slick Xbox FPS The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and the appropriately moody-looking The Darkness, due out soon on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

To be a part of it, submit your questions (up to a maximum of three each) via this email address; we’ll then collate the best and put them to Starbreeze, and subsequently run the full question-and-answer session here on Edge Online.

Questions can cover anything Starbreeze-related, past or present, and if you're looking for specific inspiration with regard to The Darkness, you can read Edge's post-E3 preview at Games Radar, or take a look at online videos from the game (GameTrailers has a number of examples).

The deadline for questions is January 18, 18:00 GMT. Please include your full name or preferred online moniker because we’ll be printing it alongside your question. And don't forget: questions along the lines of 'How many polygons are in the policeman's hat?' aren't likely to be selected.

Inspired by a classic, one’s man’s coding experiments mutated into a superlative 8bit shooter…

This article was originally published in the Christmas 2006 issue of Edge (E170). To subscribe call +44 (0)870 4448466 or click here.

It started with being blown away. The swarms of enemies, the exhilarating freedom of flight, the screen-filling explosions, the aural assault, the daunting array of controls... Defender left most who first encountered it aghast. Archer Maclean shared the same feelings of awe as his fellow arcade-goers, except he wasn't content with just playing. He wanted to make his own.

In the early days of Edge, way back in 1993, its editorial team had an interesting idea: why not take one of the magazine’s readers along to meet a game developer? It was a great plan, but in practice proved something of a logistical headache, and only two readers ever got the opportunity to put their queries to videogame industry types. Now, Edge Online’s ‘You interview…’ series is resurrecting the concept (if not the original execution).

Last week we asked you for questions to put to Evolution Studios, the codeshop behind PS3 racer MotorStorm, currently making noises in Japan and lining up for a launch in western territories in March. And here are the responses, from Evolution’s Scott Kirkland (technical director), Matt Southern (product manager), Simon Benson (producer) and Nigel Kershaw (lead designer and design manager).

(Check back here on Monday for a new ‘You interview…')

Many observers were expecting Apple’s iPhone, unveiled at the Macworld expo in San Francisco on Tuesday, to be little more than a solidly-specced mobile handset with iPod compatibility, a super-sleek gadget sold chiefly on the strength of the Apple name. What Steve Jobs’ team has come up with, however, has a feature set somewhat in excess of those expectations. Yes, it has standard mobile-phone functionality, a two-megapixel camera and a handful of gigabytes’ storage space for audio/visual content, but it’s built around a platform running a streamlined iteration of Apple’s OS X on a 9cm, 480x320-pixel widescreen, multitouch-sensitive display. It is, therefore, more than just a smartphone. It even looks sleeker than anyone was expecting.

All of which has made technology-watchers, especially those with Apple-flavoured blood running through their veins, fall in love with the iPhone concept five months before the device even reaches the market (in the US; it’s expected in Europe towards the end of 2007). So far, though, the loudest iPhone-related noises coming out of Apple have concerned the platform’s strengths in handling internet, email, music, video and voicemail, with no mention made of its capacity as a gaming device. You can be sure, though, that, in coming up with the product slogan ‘Your life in your pocket: the ultimate digital device’, Apple has every intention of making iPhone as game-friendly as possible.

Update: Edge presents File volume 2 will, like volume 1, be available in selected retailers throughout Europe and the US. A limited number are also available for purchase via the internet at myfavouritemagazines.

Edge presents File volume 2, the second in a series of special editions that bring together the best features, reviews, interviews and more from Edge’s long and colourful past, is now on sale.

Clocking in at 260 pages, the second volume covers Edge issues 13 to 24 (1994–1995), and includes:
• Hardware features, with stories focusing on Saturn, PlayStation and 3DO’s all-conquering M2 platform
• Developer features, including visits to LucasArts, 3D Realms, Namco, Amazing Studios, Bullfrog and Shiny Entertainment
• Game features on the likes of Heart Of Darkness, Ecstatica and Wipeout
• Interviews with luminaries such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Howard Lincoln, Tom Kalinske and Nolan Bushnell
• Reviews of games including Road Rash, Doom II, Alien Vs Predator, Virtua Racing Deluxe, Ridge Racer, Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA
• The art of game music, why retrogaming is in (in 1994, obviously), Neo-Geo CD, the comeback of Atari, Virtual Boy, and lots more…