With microtransactions having become the nexus of a storm, more and more governments and agencies around the world have started to look into how they could regulate them, or at least, better inform customers about their presence in a game they may be looking at, so they can make more informed decisions.

On which note, the Pan European Game Information board, known more commonly as PEGI, the agency that rates games for the European market, has announced that it will be adopting a new label to denote whether or not a game has in-game purchases and microtransactions. If nothing else, it’s a better way for people buying games, especially parents who may be buying them for their kids and may not necessarily be informed about them, to know what they are getting into.

“Purchase offers within games has become a broad phenomenon, and it is necessary to provide the same level of consumer information on both physical and digital releases,” Simon Little, PEGI’s managing director, said. “Considering that physical releases are an important part of the market, this was an important gap to fill.”

Of course, with many European markets moving outright to ban forms of monetization such as lootboxes, in the end, it is to be hoped that publishers themselves will drop exploitative monetization practices, and we will instead not have to rely on these labels.

SCEE’s Jim Ryan, while speaking with MCV, announced that PS3 has now sold over 22 million units in European regions- an impressive number indeed- and that the console still has “lots of life.”

He drew a comparison to the PS2, saying that while it sold over 50 million units in territories, the PS3 still has a loot of years left in its life cycle, and that there’s more for the system “still to come.” He is confident it will sell even more, since now the console is available for  £199 in the UK.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin, which was slated for release on the PSP only in Japan, has now been confirmed to be getting a European release as well, coming later this year in form of a Collector’s Edition.

UK-based publisher Ghostlight has announced that they will be handling the game’s release in PAL regions.

Stay tuned for more info.

Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be released in Europe in “early 2012”. In Square’s latest release schedule, it says that Final Fantasy XIII-2 will still release in US in January, as announced a little time back, but in Europe, it’ll release a few months later maybe.

Square Enix has confirmed to VG247 that the Jan release date is only for US regions.

Here’s what we want to see in Final Fantasy XIII-2 when it releases.

Xenoblade, which was originally supposed to be released on the Wii in Europe this September, will not be releasing in August. The RPG’s date has been shifted from September 2 to August 19.

Nintendo also announced the Classic Controller Pro bundle is a limited version, so you should pre-order it while you still can.

We also reported earlier yesterday that Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower might just get released in North America after all. Check out the entire article here.

PSN will go offline at 4:05pm GMT on Wednesday March 9th for just over 11 hours. Sony have said that you will still be able to play online, provided you login before the maintenance begins. Sony also stated that any trophies collected during the downtime will still be recorded, however they will not be added to your profile until the downtime has finished. It is not known if the US will be affected by anything similar.

Thanks to EU Playstation Blog.

Things like this really aren’t pleasing to hear.

The planned Xbox Live Gold membership weekend which was announced earlier today has just been cancelled by Microsoft for most of Europe.

The hardware and software giant, revealed this news via a tweet:

Clarification on the Free LIVE Weekend that you may have heard about – it has been postponed in almost all European countries.

However, a few European countries have managed to survive this turn of events, as MS later informed that a few countries were still going to get it as planned:

“I’m told that ‘we’ll be in a position soon to announce a further Free LIVE Weekend.’ Apologies for any inconvenience.” Boyd added in a later Tweet.

No details yet as to when European gaming folks can enjoy a free weekend of Gold subs but we’ll keep you updated.

Nintendo’s confirmed that the 3DS will be releasing on March 25 in Europe. It’ll be accompanied by 7 launch titles in the region.

However, they are yet to announce a price for the device.

HMV’s mentioned on Twitter a £229 price for the basic console.

It’ll cost $249 in US and will release on March 27.

Square’s announced the European release date for their third-person shooter Mindhack today. It’s releasing on Jan 21.

Square Enix has earlier confirmed that the shooter would see a Jan 17 release in US and Jan 27 release in Japan.

The game’s due out for PS3 and Xbox 360.

The shooter claims to “blur the line between traditional single and multi-player gameplay, creating a experience where NPCs can at any moment take the roles of human-controlled allies or enemies.

Sounds cool innit.

Sony has announced that all EU PS Plus members can take part in the Killzone 3 BETA by downloading the KZ3 beta client. NO strings attached.

This news come as part of the treats that they have announced for PS Plus members.

This is however only for a limited period of time and you need to download the the client during today. Sony won’t be sending out anything informing you about this, so you better be quick.

Killzone 3 releases in Feb 2011 for PS3.