Official Xbox Magazine has the scoop on the Fall Xbox 360 dashboard update, and you better believe it's a doozy. UK-based CVG reports that the December 2 update will allow 360 owners to download and play Microsoft-published Xbox 1 games on their 360s.

Let's say that one more time: come December 2, you will be able to download full, original Xbox games to the Xbox 360. The initial list of available games includes Fable, Indigo Prophecy, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, Burnout 3, and, of course, Halo: Combat Evolved.

Games will cost approximately 1200 Microsoft Points, or $15 USD. Microsoft plans on re-releasing as many Xbox 1 titles as possible through Marketplace. Look out, Virtual Console.

Update: The CVG source has been removed, but Eurogamer has posted a similar report, dating the update for December 4th.

Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios today announced a collaboration with Paris-based developer Quantic Dream, one which promises to "redefine cinematic real-time entertainment" with a new PlayStation-exclusive title. Judging by Quantic Dream's past efforts in David Bowie dystopia sim, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, or the multi-angle murder mystery Fahrenheit (dubbed Indigo Prophecy in America), cinematic presentation and integral narratives seem du jour on the developer's list of goals.

Quantic Dream President and CEO, David Cage commented on the choice of console and the sheer pleasantness of the folks at Sony. "We always believed that "next generation" meant more meaningful content based on players' emotional involvement. To us, PS3 is the only platform that can truly deliver on this promise, and SCE WWS is a group that is both inspiring and pleasant to work with."

Though the name of the upcoming PS3 game isn't specified and could very well be an entirely new game, Quantic Dream's website currently lists Heavy Rain as a "confidential next generation console game." The film-like poster above, which bears the subtitle "The Origami Killer," certainly seems to highlight the title's cinematic aspirations, if not the question of why anybody would want to murder folded pieces of paper. What did they ever do to you?

Venture into the Uncanny Valley after the break to see Heavy Rain's impressive and quietly disturbing E3 2006 Virtual Actor demonstration. If the announced collaboration turns out to be a different game entirely, we fully encourage the parties involved to step into the rain and scream, "Gotcha, suckas!"

[Via Sony press release]

Clive Thompson over at collision detection has spotted a very bad example of the "Uncanny Valley" rearing its ugly head (literally) in the trailer for the upcoming PS3 game, Heavy Rain, the sequel to Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy. The theory of the "Uncanny Valley", realized by Japanese robotics engineer Masahiro Mori, states that people's attitudes towards robots (or in-game characters) will become negative at the point at which the model is regarded as "almost human". Characters that lie within the valley are technically realistic, but their subtle differences compared to real humans freak us out.

This trailer well and truly scrapes the bottom of the valley: the poor lip animation, the glazed eyes and the lifeless skin combine to make the model look like a mash-up of Sofia Coppola and a deformed porcelain doll (ouch!). Now that console hardware is capable of near-CGI quality graphics, game developers and artists better watch their backs if they don't want to unintentionally scare their customers. As for designers of horror games, they can quite happily add another tool to their belt.

[Via collision detection]

Update: added an extra word that restored sense to the sentence (and to life, the universe and everything).