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A couple of days ago, we reported that Japanese authorities weren't allowing Sony to turn on the PlayStation Network in Japan because they felt Sony's promised security countermeasures were not yet completed. Well, it turns out said authorities may have been correct, as Nyleveia first reported and Eurogamer has seen video evidence that Sony's PlayStation Network password page was compromised. The hack allowed anyone to change any account password, so long as said account's email and date of birth was known, regardless of if said account had its password changed when the PSN returned. If a culprit did not know an account's email address or date of birth, said account remained safe, though the problem here is that the PSN went down precisely because that information -- along with a load of other sensitive information -- was obtained through the initial hack. Eurogamer reports they have seen video evidence that verifies the password hack worked, but luckily, Sony took down the password page shortly after Nyleveia began reporting the hack. As of now, users will still be able to sign into the PSN via their PlayStation 3 or PSP, but Nyleveia suggests "that everyone, regardless of if they have been affected or not, create a new password and change their account email to one they do not use anywhere else, and will not be sharing with anyone else just for additional security." (Nyleveia via Eurogamer)

According to Eurogamer Denmark, Bethesda is hard at work developing The Elder Scrolls V, which is said to be a direct sequel to the 2006 RPG masterpiece, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Eurogamer asked the author of the Eurogamer Denmark article, Kristian West, to translate the article:

This source not only confirmed that the game is in current production, but also spoke briefly about the content - with fantasy-sounding phrases like Dragon Lord, something with The Blades - and that voice acting for the characters in the game is currently happening in the weeks to follow. The same source confirmed, with official game documents in hand, that this will be the chronological sequel to what happened in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which is the latest game in the now 16-years-old Elder Scrolls saga and by itself one of the better RPGs for PC and consoles. The sequel to Oblivion is coming, we can hereby confirm without hesitation. It's been a while since 2006, hasn't it?

Bob McKenzie, senior VP of marketing and merchandising over at GameStop, told Eurogamer that the pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops "hit the largest number of reservations we've had on any release so far." That's right, the first Call of Duty since Activision basically lost the "good" Call of Duty developer, developed by the "not nearly as good" Call of Duty developer Treyarch, is the most pre-ordered video game of all time at the retail gaming giant.

Ready for one last bit of Blizzard related news, now that Blizzcon is firmly over? Rob Pardo, the big dude (read: executive vice president of game design) over at Blizzard Entertainment, had some things to say about Valve attempting to trademark "Defense of the Ancients," the name of the most popular Warcraft III mod out there, the community effort that spawned a brand new kind of game play. Pardo is apparently not enthused:

To us, that means that you're really taking it away from the Blizzard and Warcraft III community and that just doesn't seem the right thing to do... [We reacted with] a little bit of confusion, to be honest. Certainly, DOTA came out of the Blizzard community... It just seems a really strange move to us that Valve would go off and try to exclusively trademark the term considering it's something that's been freely available to us and everyone in the Warcraft III community up to this point. Valve is usually so pro mod community. It's such a community company that it just seems like a really strange move to us... I really don't understand why [they would do it], to be honest.

A couple months ago EA announced that it would allow gamers to play as the Taliban in the multi-player modes of its upcoming Medal of Honor game. The response to this decision was vocal and negative, and came to the same conclusion for a variety of reasons. This week, EA rescinded the whole thing... sort of. Players will still be able to play as insurgents in the new MoH, its just that the game will call them "Opposing Force" instead of "Taliban." No aspects of the gameplay will be changed other than the name. But even this purely cosmetic change is too much for some industry analysts.

Pac-Man is Moleskine (Kotaku) Miyamoto Wants to Make A Rubik's Cube? (Eurogamer) This Deer Made Out of Typewriter Parts is Adorable, Actually (Jeremy Mayer) Hello Kitty R2-D2 (Google News) Mark Zuckerberg on Oprah (Cindy W) Avengers Hulk Will Be Mo-Cap (Blastr) Samus and the Colossus (David-Hsu-Yen) (pic (click to embiggen) via Wondermark.)

News that Taliban fighters would be one of the playable sides in the online multiplayer of the next Medal of Honor game has been greeted with apprehension by some, who voiced legitimate concern over the interactions between the online multiplayer FPS community with something as sensitive as the current and ongoing war in Afghanistan. When asked about gamers feeling uneasy playing as Taliban, gamemaker DICE has responded:

"I think it is a fair point," said producer Patrick Liu... "We do stir up some feelings, although it's not about the war, it's about the soldiers.

"We can't get away from what the setting is and who the factions are, but in the end, it's a game, so we're not pushing or provoking too hard."

We've reported before on Microsoft's lavishly planned E3 Project Natal event, which is going to involve a performance by Cirque du Soleil, and that press will not be allowed to bring electronics in. Well, the show goes up tomorrow night, and the LA Times has some new details on what we'll all miss, at least until someone inevitably uploads a shoddy YouTube video of it. And yes, an elephant is involved.

Professors, if you're wondering why some previously very bright and organized students start turning in rushed or no assignments this September, I have the culprit. Civilization V is going to come out on September 21st.

The odds of a GoldenEye remake are looking better and better. A while back we reported that Activision had laid claim on the domain of goldeneyegame.com. Now Eurogamer is reporting that, according to their sources, it is totally happening. They say the game will be officially announced in a couple of weeks at E3, and will be released in November.

Sorry kids.  You're going to have to do your homework before logging on to Halo: Reach.  Bungie has announced the release date for the next installment in its history-making first-person-shooter, and it's September 14th. At the same time, they've announced some demographic info on the Reach beta, and the numbers are impressive.

Microsoft has announced that their showstopping pre-E-3 Project Natal-related event will be "a spectacular live performance imagined by Cirque du Soleil." Uh, okay. It's also said that this pre-show is a "technology free" event, which is the most homey word for "seriously, no pictures, videos, leaks, texting, twittering, or - you know what? We're just setting off an EMP five minutes before curtain up," I've heard in a while. We fully understand if you know what Natal is, but don't know what Cirque du Soleil is, or vice versa, or if you have no idea what either of them are. Allow us to explain why this is weird.

In an interview with Edge Magazine yesterday, Shigeru Miyamoto made something of an alarming pronouncement.

Probably the other thing that we are desperate to realise is the core [online] business structure... Do we need to demand customers pay monthly fees to enjoy online activities? Or give an online subscription that is free of charge, but then offer something extra for people that pay, so that they get some extra value? With these core business strategies I think we are less active than we should be.

Does this mean that the free online gaming of the Wii and DS will go the way of the dodo?

Sony has finally revealed the name and form of its new motion controller for the PlayStation, the PlayStation Move.  Like Nintendo's Wiimote and Nun-chuck, it also has an off-hand peripheral with a joystick.  Unlike the Nun-chuck, there is no cord, and, unlike the Wiimote, the Move has... Please pay attention, Nintendo. Rechargeable batteries.

Yesterday, Ubisoft's Digital Rights Management servers for Assassin's Creed II were down for over 10 hours, preventing many players from accessing the game at all.

Ubisoft has told Eurogamer that the downtime actually only affected 5% of their player base and was caused by attacks on their server from an external source.