Sure Sony loses out on Holiday 2011, but they need to come on very strong at the outset, and if they can secure a lineup that capitalizes on the handheld’s strengths — a big IF to say the least — it will be worth it for them to get their ducks in a row before launching.

As someone who can’t get near my PS3 or TV much before late at night these days thanks to my kids getting older and staying up later, I’m excited about the prospect of a souped up handheld aimed at the hardcore gaming crowd. If I have to wait maybe six more months for it at the most, that won’t kill me. I still have a decent backlog on the PSP itself to work through.

Seen on Shacknews.

Atlus announced today that a 10 track, mini-soundtrack CD will be available in limited quantities for those that pre-order Persona 2: Innocent Sin for PSP.  Persona 2 is the only game in the Persona series that did not see a release outside of Japan, and the same goes for the soundtrack.

The soundtrack will feature tracks from the PSP version of Persona 2, a few from the original version of the game, a couple of remix tracks, and finally a few that do not even appear in the actual game.  To celebrate this announcement, Atlus was kind enough to send over a new batch of screens for gamers to peruse, so sit back and check them out after the jump.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin for PSP is set to release during the Fall 2011 timeframe.

With NBA 2K11, 2K Sports put together a basketball release that packaged up a great basketball sim, while adding the amazing talent of Michael Jordan into the mix.  The game became an instant hit with the fans, and after 5+ million units have been sold across all platforms, it was going to be interesting to see what 2K Sports would do to up the ante on the title.

Today, we have a small piece of the puzzle as to what might be happening, as 2K Sports has announced that NBA 2K12 would ship with three different covers in a limited edition run, with Michael Jordan returning, but adding Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.  All three are considered to be some of the best players in the game, and the covers will be a one off variant on the normal 2K Games packaging.

No word on whether we will get a Bird or Magic challenge, but after the success of the Jordan challenge, it would be a huge missed opportunity to add these greats into the mix.  Who knows, maybe they will all be playable on a 1992 Barcelona Olympics team mode?  One can dream.

NBA 2K12 is developed by 2K Sports and will be available on just about every platform on October 4th, 2012.

Jordan Returns: 2K Sports Announces Trio of NBA® 2K12 Covers Featuring Three NBA Icons

Michael Jordan, joined by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, to grace three unique artistic covers in celebration of NBA legacy

New York, NY – July 21, 2011 – 2K Sports announced today that NBA® 2K12, the next installment of the top-rated and best-selling NBA video game simulation franchise*, will offer three separate covers for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360®video game and entertainment system from Microsoft featuring three of the NBA’s greatest legends of all time, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

The new stylized NBA 2K12 covers are a unique, one-time departure from the traditional 2K Sports brand artwork, and will spotlight each legendary athlete on his famous team: the Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, and Los Angeles Lakers. The covers featuring Bird and Johnson will be available at launch in a limited quantity.

A new feat in sports gaming, this three-part collection extends the strong legacy established by NBA 2K11, which has sold-in more than 5 million units worldwide and garnered over 20 video game accolades, including 14 ‘Sports Game of the Year’ honors.

“Bringing Michael Jordan to the virtual hardwood last year was a huge success for NBA 2K11; however, we didn’t want to stop there,” said Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports. “We’re bringing ‘His Airness’ back to the NBA 2K franchise as part of a multi-year extended partnership, along with two other legendary icons – Larry Bird and Magic Johnson – for a special cover athlete collection representing the NBA’s greatest heroes.”

The unprecedented, stylized artwork covers underscore 2K Sports’ passion for bringing fans authentic NBA basketball across generations, while celebrating the legacy of legendary hoops athletes, past and present.

The cover artwork for NBA 2K12 was created by Adam Larson of Adam&Co. Larson has created dynamic artwork for galleries, magazines and various product advertising campaigns. His work has received numerous honors, including the Kelly Awards, Cannes Lions, Clio Awards, and two primetime Emmy nominations

NBA 2K12 can now be pre-ordered from leading video game retailers nationwide, and will be available on October 4, 2011, for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360, Wii™ system, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and Windows PC.

NBA 2K12 is currently rated RP-E by the ESRB. Visit www.esrb.org for updated rating information.

For more information on 2K Sports, visit www.2KSports.com.

2K Sports is a division of 2K, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).

*According to 2008 – 2011 Gamerankings.com and The NPD Group estimates of U.S. retail video game sales through June 2011.

About Take-Two Interactive Software

Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a global developer, marketer and publisher of interactive entertainment software games for the PC, PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment systems, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii™, Nintendo DS™, iPhone®, iPod® touch and iPad®. The Company publishes and develops products through its wholly owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K, which publishes its titles under 2K Games, 2K Sports and 2K Play. The Company’s common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at www.take2games.com.

“PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies and are used under license from Microsoft.

Wii and the Wii logo are trademarks of Nintendo.

All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained herein which are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws and may be identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “projects,” “seeks,” “will,” or words of similar meaning and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for the Company’s future business and financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to them, which are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may vary materially from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of risks and uncertainties including: our dependence on key management and product development personnel, our dependence on our Grand Theft Auto products and our ability to develop other hit titles for current generation platforms, the timely release and significant market acceptance of our games, the ability to maintain acceptable pricing levels on our games, our ability to raise capital if needed and risks associated with international operations. Other important factors and information are contained in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, in the section entitled “Risk Factors,” and the Company’s other periodic filings with the SEC, which can be accessed atwww.take2games.com. All forward-looking statements are qualified by these cautionary statements and apply only as of the date they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Square Enix announced today that it has released its critically reviewed title, Final Fantasy Tactics: the War of the Lions on the PSN today for the low price of $9.99.  While nothing has changed from the original release, which is not a bad thing, it gives those that have not checked out this title a great way to pick it up, without hitting the wallet too hard.

While I am not a big fan of the Tactics line, I do like the idea of re-releasing older titles for the PSP at a discount rate via the PSN.  It is a tactic that more developers and publishers should embrace to give those looking at the PSP Vita a healthy library of downloadable titles at launch to make up for the shortcomings that normally happen in a launch window for a new console.

Fans of the lovingly named Square Enix PSP title, Dissidia 012[duodecim] Final Fantasy can now get excited for a lot of new DLC content that is inbound for the game. 

Each pack of DLC will set you back a cool $0.99 on the PSN and features all kinds of outfits, characters and background music tracks that you can have playing while you quest your way through the game.  The music packs include two to three new tracks and there are packs for most of the Final Fantasy games that have come out over the years.   There are also new avatars that can be purchased as well for the same $0.99 price tag.

To me this is just crappy programming. They had a whole month to get ready for anything — load issues, security issues, anything, and still, STILL this pile of crap Store software throws ridiculous looking Error codes instead of doing any of the following when under heavy traffic:
* let users opt to enter a queue to access the page or start the download
* make a server-side queue of downloads just like on those PC download sites
* just say it’s fricken busy and to try back later! NOT SOME ERROR 0x234987sd#$*(@ nobody is going to understand!

Come on Sony, we’re grown-ups, we know that not paying for an online service has its limitations, or even that when paying for it bandwidth and server infrastructure isn’t infinite, but a tiny bit of intelligence in the software can go a long way to managing these limitations and not making you look like complete imbeciles when you’re trying to make your customer base happy enough to use your systems again.

And what do they say on Twitter and the Blog to make up for this? You have plenty of time to get your games so don’t panic? You want your customers to be happy and use your system, not GO AWAY and maybe NOT COME BACK! THIS is supposed to inspire CONFIDENCE?!

Note to Sony: Learn Faster. FASTER!

And the PSP titles are:
* LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
* ModNation Racers
* Pursuit Force
* Killzone Liberation

On the PS3 I’m a big fan of LittleBigPlanet, inFAMOUS, and Super Stardust HD. I own all three of those already so I’ll be picking Dead Nation and even though I’m not a fan of the Wipeout series, free is free, so I’ll pick that up, too.

On the PSP I’ve played the venerable Pursuit Force and Killzone Liberation, while exceptional, is exceedingly difficult. It did, however, get an add-on patch which added I believe a whole fifth chapter along with online multiplayer — a truly amazing amount of free add-on content for a handheld game. The portable versions of LittleBigPlanet and Modnation Racers, however, are both stellar games that I haven’t played. I’m still on the fence on this one.

Details, along with some illuminating comments on how the downloads work in the Store, are on the blog.

The Store update looks to be making good on that month of downtime… a staggering eleven full games, six demos, and a list of add-on content, price drops and ancillary downloads that will cramp up your scrolling finger. Plus over 75 Rock Band tracks!

The Welcome Back packages are, unbelievably, still not available. Sony is still working on that. The company promises “soon” on those, as well as regular fresh Store updates during E3 week.

The good news is that they’ll be spending a good portion of the show talking about and giving the press hands-on with new hardware, which has long been Sony’s strong suit. The NGP will be the star of this year’s show, but expect more detail on the just-announced PSP Remasters, PlayStation Move, the Xperia Play, and maybe just maybe they’ll grant my two long shot guesses below.

NGP

The NGP will be the star of the show, and it will finally get its true name of the PSP2. Keeping it the NGP would offer Sony the chance to create a new brand image for it, but Sony’s marketing is, well, Sony marketing, and they can’t not have the PlayStation brand on this thing. It will be delayed to the first quarter of 2012, given the wiggle room of “launching in one territory by end of 2011” previously noted and the earthquake’s effects on supply chains in Japan. More specs will be announced, but not all of them, and they will dodge all questions on the system’s price as well as the expected price of the games. Expect to hear nothing about the 3G version of the handheld, and Sony will dodge questions about it and focus on the games and core feature set of the WiFi version.

Lots of PSP2 franchises will be shown and will include Uncharted, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, EyePet, Resistance, Eye of Judgment, Monster Hunter, Invizimals, and dare I say Syphon Filter? Expect very few new franchises at launch, but maybe we’ll see some surprise franchises that haven’t been seen since the PS2.

The PSP Remasters will be touted within the PSP2 showcase as well, talking up how at least this system will be backwards compatible with its immediate predecessor’s games, albeit only the digitally downloaded versions of them.

PlayStation 3

There won’t be a price drop this time, but all systems will instead start to ship with download vouchers for at least one Greatest Hits retail title, and after E3 expect a press release announcing new PS3 SKUs at the same price points with larger hard drives, bumping the 160GB unit to 250GB and the 320GB to 500GB. It would be smart to announce the drive upgrade alongside newly downloadable versions of formerly Blu-ray only games, but that might be too much to ask of Sony marketing.

The PSP Remasters which were surprisingly announced early with Monster Hunter 3 will get a good amount of press this time. Lots of visuals if not a playable Monster Hunter 3 will be joined by five more titles, one of which will be Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Also look for Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories to be announced. Publishers will be flocking to the opportunity to pump out new versions of old assets and gameplay and several franchises, while not shown, will be promised for the PSP Remasters line. Also expect announcements that some PSP Remasters will have PSN releases much like regular PSP games do today to move closer to an all-digital model and award publishers more profit for porting their games over. Retail will be important, especially around the holidays, but all-digital is more profitable.

PlayStation Move will get some new games shown, including the already-announced EyePet sequel, and perhaps some goodies like Sports Champions 2 and Start The Party 2. Move support for everything they can possibly wedge it into will be shown as much as possible, and we’ll see more of Sorcery, which has been oddly quiet in recent months. The press won’t be sure about Move support in some games but they were quite happy with Killzone 3′s support for it, so hope will spring eternal that developers will learn from how Guerrilla did it right.

Expect Valve to return with some new information about Steam-powered gaming on the PS3. Last year’s high profile announcement of Portal 2 resulted in a very high quality product that delivered on this promise and now it’s Valve’s turn to tell us what this Steam integration means for PS3 gamers going forward. A port of Left For Dead 2, perhaps?

3D

Sony will continue banging the 3D drum as much as possible, with every major title showing support for it as a bullet point. They will talk about 3D TV adoption, but the press will generally yawn about it. Until the price comes down, 3D will continue to be a nice-to-have part of TV.

PlayStation Portable

There will be no price drop on the PSP just yet. We’ll see that when the NGP launches. The PSP Go will vanish entirely from all marketing materials and videos as it is a failed platform. Expect some talk and maybe a demo or to of the PSP Remasters

Xperia Play / PlayStation Suite

I didn’t think the Xperia Play would show much at E3, but the big news about Minecraft hitting it pretty much answered that question for me. I still think it bears repeating that a phone tied to a carrier is going to have serious selling problems to a younger demographic as well as anyone already on contract with a carrier already. See one of my long shots below for my thoughts on how to solve this problem.

However, we should also see some Sony tablet prototypes running PlayStation certified games, but the media won’t be impressed overall. The Android Market and the public’s tolerance for rapid development and expansion of games, ad supported or not, will run rings around the old world of the centrally controlled release schedule. Generally the media won’t care about this initiative until they have more shipping tablets, and by then what will the iPad and Android Tablet worlds look like?

The Long Shots

What could Sony do to pleasantly surprise us this time around?

Long shot #1: The PS3 will be able to play the same copy of the digital download PSP2 game at no additional charge, play online against other PSP2 players using integrated online or Adhoc Party, and share saved games between the PS3 copy and the PSP2 copy of the game. This will be a major incentive for the Sony faithful to buy digitally instead of the new SD-like card format.

Long shot #2: The PSP2 gets a Google-managed and updated Android subsystem with its own Market channel just like the carriers get to carry Android games aimed at the handheld’s form factor and controls. This must be more than just the strongly hinted language in the PlayStation Suite announcement in January. Real dual-stick controls, front and back touchscreens, accelerated visuals, network support, and a long-term stable platform for development would make it the go-to item for Android gaming. Google’s productivity suite of email, calendaring, and everything else Android would allow early adopters to feel like it has more value out of the box. Sony needs something like this to help its high price tag look worthwhile, even if the hardware is going to be really good.

What else?

Sony’s set to continue branching out with its new phone, handheld, and maybe tablets this year, but I think it needs to execute on my long shots to put itself back near the front of the pack. Leveraging Android is their best bet to move handhelds at launch.

I know there are lots of franchises I didn’t talk about above, so what do you think we should see at this year’s E3 from Sony?

Atlus seems to be on a roll when it comes to PSP release titles.  First we had the original Shin Megami Tensei Persona title remixed for the PSP.  Then came Persona 3 Portable, which was an amazing translation from the PS2, and featured many new features not present in the original title.  Now, we get the missing link between the two titles, as Persona 2: Innocent Sin is finally getting its due on the PSP.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is where the series started its transition from a first person dungeon crawler like system, into the isometric, character driven story that we have come to love in the later Persona titles.  Yes, you are still slaying demons and navigating dungeons, but the focus turned towards the internal character interaction that has defined the series.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin will boast several new features for the new platform, including using the full widescreen format of the PSP, the option to choose between the original or remixed soundtrack and a redesigned interface for the PSP device.  It is also the first time that Persona 2 will be officially available in North America, as the PS2 version was never sold in stores here.

Check out the jump for a load of screens and the intro trailer for Persona 2 after the jump.  Persona 2: Innocent Sin is set for a Fall 2011 launch exclusively on PSP by Atlus.