The virtual world of PlayStation Home is being monitored by the powers that be, who have taken measures to censor text chat so as to ensure users aren't offended by what it deems to be offensive language.

The list of objectionable words includes the likes of gay "lesbian" and "bisexual", as well as the likes of "Christ" and "Jew". Users can currently leave feedback to Sony who insists that it will adopt a zero tolerance policy and will take action against any bad behavior, including racist and sexist remarks, but some believe that Sony has gone over the top by banning such words.

Michael Marsh, an 18-year-old gamer from Norwalk, Conn is one such disgruntled user who believes that Sony is discriminating sections of society by banning such words. He tried to set up a gay/straight alliance club, but was prevented from doing so due to the censorship.

"By blocking a word like gay which is a preferred term by the gay community, you're encouraging it as a bad word," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Sony has reacted to the complaints by assuring users that it is listening to feedback from its community and that it will take into account and act upon any issues that are brought to its attention.

"The key message is it's a beta and it's evolving on a daily basis," said Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Patrick Seybold. "We've said early on that user behavior and feedback will shape where we go with Home."

While PlayStation 3 owners continue to lash out in regards to the lack of a steady RPG stream on their beloved console, Keiji Inafune, Capcom's head of Research and Development, is going in the opposite direction by proclaiming that RPGs just don't sell well enough outside of Japan to make them worth committing to. In a recent interview with 1up.com, Inafune was asked if Capcom had any plans on bringing back the Breath of Fire franchise, his answer, of course, was something we didn't particularly want to hear.

"There are currently no plans on making a new Breath of Fire game," Inafune says. "Apart from that, regarding RPG titles, they are very popular in Japan, but only certain RPG titles sell so Capcom doesn't really need to even consider making these titles as an option. There's a low possibility that we'll be making one in the near future."

While this is disheartening, Inafune adds, "But, I realize that there are fans of the series, and we have staff who are interested so it's not out of the question. We actually have a lot of titles in a similar situation, where there's an interest by users and our staff, but where we just don't have the resources. Square Enix and Namco Bandai have 1,200 development staff but we only have 600. There's a lot more that we want to do, titles that would probably sell well if we made them, but we just don't have enough staff."

When looking at exclusive RPGs such as Valkyria Chronicles, we understand his perspective on the entire situation. However, that doesn't mean we still don't want to see further additions to great franchises of the past. Sure, the sales may not be in the millions right away, but they'll climb slowly, right?

LittleBigPlanet or LittleBigProblems? It seems ever since Media Molecule's dream creation reached the pre-launch week, the title has been bogged down with any issue one could think of. From the full week delay due to religious content to the online experience being gimped down, users have found one problem after another. While LBP has proven to be an extraordinary title, one which we love, it goes without saying that a supposed flagship title for the console should have shipped with far less issues.

According to a thread started over at LittleBigWorkshop, more users are running into a slight problem that results in some of their saved profile information being deleted. This issue seems to be targeting the recently released Metal Gear Solid 4 data more than anything else. Below is a couple of posts from users experiencing this dilemma.

"I've completed all five acts, and when I turned off the power and played again, all that was unlocked was Act 1-3. However, my scores from Act 4 and 5 were still in place-- it's just that I need to unlock them all over again as well as collect the prize bubbles. I turned the power off again and I'm back at Act 3 which is the last one unlocked with the game saying I've collected 0% of the goodies in Acts 3-5. To add to it, the saved costumes I had of the Metal Gear crew were missing from my saved costumes folder. Though the actual parts to create those costumes are still there thankfully." - SuperPhillip

"I went though everything and this time I got 100% on everything and didn't die on the last level so I aced 3/5 levels. I quit out of it for 1 minute and I go back in. I lost everything, again!" - MexicanGRUNT

The time frame for this issue couldn't be worse as the Holiday season is still wrapping up, leaving no official word from Media Molecule or Sony in sight. We'll continue to send out emails to see if there is a fix in the works, but until then, we'd like to know if any of our readers have experienced this problem. Let us know below.

It sounds like Hideo Kojima is once more hard at work after his post-Metal Gear Solid 4two

Kojima wants his studio to, as 1UP puts it, "compete with the best of the best in America and Europe." We say he's been doing this for years now, but if he intends to up his game even further and make even better titles in the future, who are we to complain? As for his two new projects, we can't wait to hear more about them. What's at the top of your personal Kojima wishlist? vacation. In an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu states that he's directing new games simultaneously within Kojima Productions. While one game, which is destined to be announced first, is being developed in the traditional Kojima Productions **** his second title is being developed by a newly restructured team within the company and will be focused more towards the Western market.

Perhaps the PS3 was a bit too ahead of its time. The console was almost absurdly expensive when it launched -- and not just for consumers. In spite of an initial $600 price tag, Sony lost hundreds of dollars on every system manufactured. The combination of Blu-ray drive and Cell processor made the PS3 a bit too bleeding edge, perhaps. A report from respectable Japanese site PC Watch suggests that Sony may be considering a cheaper alternative for the next-generation PS4.

Nintendo found great success (and profitability) with Wii by releasing hardware that was only marginally more powerful than the Gamecube. Sony may mimic that trend by having PS4 hardware based on the same Cell architecture as the PS3. Keeping the same architecture will help developers, many which have only recently come to grips with the complex processes of Sony's proprietary system.

However, one particular note in the report has us quite worried: according to PC Watch, the Sony wants to launch a new system, before the competition -- eyeing a 2011 release. With the PS3 still so relatively young, we'd hate to see Sony raise a white flag and move on to something new, especially when they've harped about the "10 year life cycle" so often. Too soon of a hardware release could be seen as a betrayal by many, and could result in a serious backlash. For us, we'd love to get more time out of the significant investments we've made in our PS3 hardware.

those that have played Metal Gear Solid 4 probably stumbled upon the "Integral" podcast through the in-game iPod. The included podcast mentioned future episodes, but no updates have been delivered yet. Well, looks like that's going to change, as the first new episode of the podcast will be available to download on January 8th, 2009. The episode will feature Ken Imaizumi, Aki Saito, Sean Eyestone talking about all things Metal Gear-related. Perhaps they'll talk about LittleBigPlanet -- or the newly announced iPhone game. Expect episodes to be released every two weeks afterwards.

The podcast is available exclusively within Metal Gear Solid 4. So, when January comes around, pop in the Blu-ray disc and give the Integral podcast a listen.

[Thanks, SnoopYTimes!]

That certainly didn't take long -- if this rumor proves to be true, Sony's social service Home has already been hacked. A hacker going by the name of StreetskaterFU has made the claim that he has breached Sony's servers for Home and successfully downloaded, uploaded and deleted files. The poster also provided instructions on how you can do this yourself, and a member of the PS3hax forum has supposedly done just that -- he was able to change the posters and trailers in the Home theater, though it appears the effect is only local. A video of the hack in action is available after the jump. We haven't witnessed any of this in action ourselves during our experiences in Home, but do tell us in the comments if you've seen otherwise.

Amid a sea of Resistance 2s, LittleBigPlanets, Dead Spaces and Mirror's Edges it's easy to miss out on some real gaming gems. Titles that don't immediately spring to mind when you think of 2008's must-have games, but which are nonetheless worthy of your attention. Valkyria Chronicles is one of those games and I'm putting my cards on the table in this, the review's intro paragraph, so that there's no ambiguity; Valkyria Chronicles is an amazing game. Here's why.

Valkyria Chronicles is a Japanese Strategy RPG set in a fictional Second World War. You take control of Squad 7 of the Gallian Militia in order to prevent the evil Empire from invading your home country. The game places a lot of stock in its story, with many cutscenes throughout.

The first thing you'll notice about the game is how beautiful it is. The overall anime ****may be familiar to you, but you've never seen it done like this before. A textured overlay makes the game look like a watercolor painting on stretched canvas. An effect heightened by the very edges of the screen, which have been left blank and uneven. As if the artist has not painted all the way to the edge.

We recommend you read this entire interview with Hideo Kojima at 1UP -- it's filled with great revelations about MGS4 and Hideo's thoughts on the future (including MGS5).

One thing did pop up in our readthrough: Hideo Kojima is unhappy with the number of people currently playing Metal Gear Online, the multiplayer portion of MGS4. Undoubtedly, the cumbersome Konami ID registration process, which requires players to write down multiple IDs and passwords simply to get into the game, became a significant barrier of entry.

"Honestly, officially, I can't say anything on Konami ID and Game ID. It's a company policy. But frankly speaking, the idea wasn't a very good one. The fact is that Konami's direction was that we create a Game ID and Konami ID for the online components, and now we're seeing that it's not working so well, and we have to think about how to turn it around. It was a concept of an online Konami group thinking, so there's not much I could do at the time."

I picked up a fancy, schmancy Sony PS3 Blu-ray remote yesterday and put it through its paces.

Opening up the nearly-impossible-to-open blister pack, I was treated to the remote itself, an instruction manual and 2 Sony branded AA batteries (I hope they don't explode on me!). The remote itself is a bit on the light side of things as far as weightiness goes. In the appearance department, the remote is a nice match with the PS3 itself. Pictures of the remote don't do it enough justice. What looks like a bland 90s ****Sony remote in publicity shots has a much more elegant and sleek profile in reality. Like the PS3 itself, the remote has a very glossy top surface that I wasn't expecting.

All of the buttons you would expect are accounted for (except a dedicated power button -- though you'll use the PS button in the middle of the remote to power up and power down). The remote has a nice ergonomic design to it that is lacking in most Sony remotes. There's a little groove built into the back where your pointer finger will rest, allowing your thumb to easily drive the bulk of the remote functions.

As a bluetooth device, you first have to register the remote with your PS3 unit. It's a simple process that takes just a couple of button clicks and worked flawlessly for me. There is no IR receiver or transmitter built into the remote (or the PS3). I expereinced no lag, misfires or communications glitches between the remote and the console. It worked exactly as it should... except in the dark (which is where I like to be if I'm watching a Blu-ray movie via HDMI on a large 1080i or 1080p screen). And therein lies the remote's greatest shortcoming. The remote has no backlight. None. If you are in a darkened room and want to bring up the movie menu, pause or skip around, I hope you've memorized the button layout exactly.

The bottom-line is that at $24.99 this is a required accessory if you plan on using the Blu-ray capabilities of the console on a regular basis. The fact that you are forced to use a separate Sony Blu-ray remote (versus a 3rd party universal remote) is a bit of a problem. The fact that the Blu-ray remote is a one trick pony and won't do or control anything else besides the PS3 is an annoyance. And the fact that the remote is nearly unusable in a darkened home theater is criminal.

I'll use this remote because I basically have to (please come to the rescue third party manufacturers!), but shame on you Sony. Shame on you.