PSN AMASSED 20MILLION USERS DWARFS XBOX LIVE

If the videogame blogosphere is to be believed, the once mighty PlayStation brand is on the verge of flopping thanks to the pennywise dominance of Nintendo and Microsoft hardware and a consumer demographic unwilling to invest greater sums of money in Sony’s Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3.
However, Sony Computer Entertainment would beg to differ. Having this week rebuffed analyst claims of an imminent price cut to its PS3 console, and highlighting fiscal performance that’s on track for 10 million unit sales, Sony has also moved to draw attention to the successful spread of its PlayStation Network (PSN).
Sony has today announced it has taken the PlayStation Network just 27 months to amass more the 20 million registered users, a substantial figure that outstrips the 17 million users presently active on Microsoft’s Xbox Live network, which is in its seventh year of service.
While both PSN and Xbox Live offer largely similar platforms, including online multiplayer access, demo and trailer downloads, exclusive add-on content, and global gamer socialising, the two differ massively insofar as Xbox Live costs $50 USD per year for full access, while usage on the PlayStation Network is completely free.
Available around the world in 55 countries, the PlayStation Network currently offers some 14,500 downloadable media items (including game content, movies and TV shows) and has already delivered more than 380 million digital downloads with an accompanying value of $180 million USD.

PLAYABLE RESIDENT EVIL 5 DEMO AVAILABLE THIS MONTH

Resident Evil 5, Capcom's fifth chapter in their renowned zombie-slaying survival horror franchise and first Resident Evil game on Xbox 360 and PS3, releases on March 13, 2009, but you don't have to wait two months to play the game.
A playable Resident Evil 5 demo will be available for download on Monday, January 26 on Xbox Live and about a week later on PSN. The exact date of the RE5 demo on the PlayStation 3 is unknown, but it's promised to be around February 5 when a new PSN update is scheduled to go up.

Two levels from Resident Evil 5's story mode will be included in the free demo which can be played either online or offline in the game's cooperative mode where players massacre parasitic hordes as series hero Chris Redfield and female newcomer Sheva Alomar.

It's still unconfirmed what stages in particular will be in the demo, but they'll likely be the first two levels where you battle infected villagers, the hulking axe-carrying executioner, and even the new one-eyed chainsaw-wielding madman.

COMMERCIAL GAMES FOR DOWNLOAD AS FREEWARE

Who wants scads of commercial PC games for free? No, I don't mean the kind you download illicitly, silly. I'm talking about older but as well a few newer games, including the occasional award-winner, that publishers have made available over the years and on the house.
Games like Richard Garriot's pre-Ultima RPG Akalabeth (1979). Revolution Software's Beneath a Steel Sky (1994). The original Command & Conquer Red Alert (1996). SSI's Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (1993). Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999). Sierra's Tribes 2 (2001). Even S2 Games's just-last-January Savage 2 (2008).
No comment on Wikipedia's value as a repository for factual data, but its "List of Commercial Games Released as Freeware" is both convenient and verifiable. It's an alpha-sorted collection of older and some not-so-old titles with links to their Wiki pages, which in turn link to each game's freeware storehouse.
Have a look. There's Abe Lincoln Must Die! (2007), the fourth in the recently released gonzo Sam & Max series -- obviously bait for the other five episodes outstanding, but worth a look just the same.
Remember Bungie's pre-Halo Marathon Trilogy? Yep, all three, available gratis (and the first one's a whole 4.7MB!).
Pick of the litter? Possibly Virgin's SubSpace. It's a simple two-dimensional multiplayer space shooter, easy to learn, challenging to master, and pathologically habit-forming. It was also still being updated, according to Wikipedia, through 2007.