PSN Tuesday: Escape Plan, House of the Dead 3, The Simpsons Arcade

Naturally, a large part of this week's PSN content dump is devoted to the launch of the PlayStation Vita -- Escape Plan, Hustle Kings, and Super Stardust Delta are all available for download, the latter being the revealed free 3G game. For launch game reviews and pertinent PS Vita information, check out Joystiq's convenient launch guide.

PSN Plus subscribers get the aforementioned free copies of The Simpsons Arcade Game and Far Cry 2, while PS3 users looking to pay for something to download have House of the Dead 3, Worms Ultimate Mayhem and Inferno Pool to choose from. You can check out the full list of this week's content over on the PlayStation Blog.

Angry Birds wins a prize for making money through merchandising

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Rovio, the people sprinkling stale bread behind Angry Birds, received the Property of the Year prize at the 12th annual Toy of the Year awards (yeah, that's totally a thing). Rovio won based on the massive amount of Angry Birds physical merchandise it's released over the past two years, which includes plush toys, backpacks, clothing, phone cases and bacon. OK, not bacon, but Rovio has branded almost every other item imaginable.

"Our physical goods business has great momentum just now," Ville Heijari, Rovio's VP of franchise development, told Develop. "It's especially interesting to see many app and social game devs emulate the merchandising strategy that Rovio has been pushing with Angry Birds for the last two years."

Now Playing: February 13-19, 2012

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Wreck your opponents this week in Twisted Metal...

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Lego Star Wars sticking around for 10 more years

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Lucasfilm has renewed its licensing deal with the Lego Group for 10 more years, meaning if you have a kid right now he can grow up with a guaranteed supply of Lego Star Wars video games and toys. If you don't have a kid any time soon, look at this as an opportunity to delay growing up for another decade.

Lego is currently developing products based on Star Wars: The Old Republic, and will be following up its most recent Lego Star Wars video game, The Clone Wars, some time during the next 10 years, we'd guess. The Lego Star Wars series has sold more than 30 million units worldwide since its launch in 2005.

Here are the PSP games that will work on Vita at launch [update: more compatible games spotted]

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Sony has posted a how-to guide on downloading PSP titles to the PlayStation Vita and, along with it, a list of the 275 PSP titles and Minis that will be compatible with the Vita at launch. Obviously, it's a pretty hefty lineup, though some favorites are certainly missing, including Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Lumines and others.

That said, Sony promises more titles will be added in "the coming weeks." Head over to the US PlayStation Blog for the current list. And, before you ask, yes, of course Dragon's Lair is compatible.

Update: A couple of industry tweets reveal that some games not mentioned on the official list are already compatible with the Vita, notably Valkyria Chronicles 2 and PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. It would appear that Sony's official list may not be entirely comprehensive. Then again, the public won't actually get its hands on the Vita for another week, so maybe there's still some tweaking going on.

Vita 'UMD Passport' won't be offered in US

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It will not be possible to get discounted Vita downloads of the disc-based UMD games you bought for PSP in the US. A Sony representative told Kotaku that the "UMD Passport" service will not be available to American Vita owners.

Of course, you'll still be able to buy any digitally-distributed PSP games through the Vita's PlayStation Store and play them on the new hardware -- and you'll be able to play the PSN games you already bought on your PSP. But those UMD games will be of no use unless you keep your PSP.

Now Playing: February 6-12, 2012

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Destiny awaits this week in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning...

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IndieCade's 2012 'Festival of Independent Games' accepting submissions

Indie devs take note, submissions for IndieCade's 2012 "Festival of Independent Games" are now open on the event's official website.

IndieCade's track record is stellar, giving budding designers and developers the exposure their hard work deserves and the money their growing debt so richly desires. Past winners include darlings like Limbo, VVVVVV, and Superbrothers' Sword and Sworcery EP. Of course, bills only get paid if the games launch -- unlike Fez, which by our heart's count has been in development for the last seven hundred years.

Teams that submit a game will receive a main festival pass and an invitation to a day-long networking and workshop event. Games selected are set to be featured during the annual IndieCade Festival from October 4 through October 7.

European retailer Game puts a plaster over its money wound

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Earlier this week Game met with lenders to discuss its credit problems and options for staying in business, and now Game reports it will operate "with lower limits" and under "revised terms for its facilities." As of November 2011, Game had 1,275 stores in Europe and Australia, but has hinted that it could sell off more than half of its overseas locations, and it plans to close 60 stores by 2013. It closed 39 locations last year.

Game's economic problems aren't an issue solely for retailers, but can affect the larger gaming industry as well -- both EA and Take-Two discussed Game's position during their Q3 financial calls.

Sega's home game division posts losses, Mario & Sonic a bright spot

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Sega's "Game Contents" division (i.e. home video games) was down 5.1% for the nine-month period ending December 31, with the company reporting 63.5 billion yen ($833 million) in net game sales from the division ... and 5.5 billion yen in total losses. As for reasoning, Sega said only that "in the overseas markets, sales of the new titles remained slow as affected by adverse market condition." Best we can tell, that "adverse market condition" refers to our economies all being really, really terrible.

The publisher shared sales numbers for its major releases. Sonic Generations sold 1.63 million copies across four platforms (Wii, PS3, PC, and the 3DS Generations game). Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games outsold it with 2.39 million copies -- despite not being released in Japan yet, and only being on one platform at the time, the Wii. And, uh, despite being a Mario & Sonic Olympics minigame collection. Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend for PSP (released in Japan only) was the other named hit, with 290,000 copies.

Looking up at Sega's sales by platform, it's worth noting that Sega's single PlayStation Vita release, Virtua Tennis 4 (called Power Smash 4 in Japan) sold just 10,000 copies between the Vita launch date of December 17 and the end of the year. That ... doesn't seem very good.

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