Sony Computer Entertainment America recently staked claim to two intriguing video game monikers at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The first title, Dominion, is definitely a code name for the reboot of the Crash Bandicoot franchise we've been waiting on for so long. Or, possibly, a new God of War. Or, perhaps, a mash-up of the two franchises. Fine, we have absolutely no idea what Dominion is -- but if it turns out to be God of Bandicoot, remember that we totally called it.

The second trademarked title, Starhawk, might actually lend some credence to rumors of an upcoming space-themed follow-up to Warhawk which we heard last month. See, they replaced "War" with "Star," which is a celestial body that can be found in space. Don't feel too bad for not catching it. That kind of journalistic sleuthing is the reason we get paid the big bucks.

[Via superannuation]

Resumé watchers Superannuation, spotted an interesting mention on concept artist John Duggan's profile: Concept art for a PlayStation Warhawk sequel. In his three-year stint (1996-1999) at Sony's (now-defunct) 989 Studios, Duggan worked on a number of unreleased projects, one of which was Warhawk 2.

Concept art listed on his profile (pictured above) paint a very different picture for the planned sequel's visual style in comparison to what eventually became Incognito's Warhawk on the PlayStation 3. Sure, Warhawk is a lot of fun now... but imagine if you could pimp into battle with a flying version of The Homer or Spider-style hawk that would make Jon Peters proud. Someone start a DLC petition, stat!

Incognito Entertainment's Dylan Jobe, director of Warhawk, has announced that he is leaving Incognito and taking other staff with him. The group has formed a new studio, Lightbox Interactive, which will relocate from Incognito's home of Salt Lake City, Utah, to Austin, Texas this fall "to take advantage of Austin's creative culture and its well established game development community."

PlayStation fanboys concerned about losing talent to one of the other platforms need not be concerned: Lightbox's website mentions that the new studio is under a multi-year contract with Sony to develop games for "the PlayStation family of platforms."

Well, now we know what Jobe will be talking about in the GDC "The Big Picture 2009: Managing Your Game Dev Deal and Operating Your Game Dev Studio" panel.

[Via Kotaku]

If you consider yourself to be a veteran Warhawk player, then you might want to check out MyHawk.org. The fan site, in collaboration with developer Incognito, tracks in-game Warhawk stats and has just undergone a major update which added in new stat features such as: "clan matches & tournaments, daily leaderboards, new graphs, per-weapon stats, stats on individual games, [and] game calendar."

The game's director, Dylan Jobe, revealed on the PlayStation Blog that this is all possible because of a little experimental XML feed. The XML feed streams raw Warhawk data, which any community -- not just MyHawk -- can get access to. Jobe calls it the "democratization of the player community." That means if you run a Warhawk community and want access to the global feed, Jobe says to "hit the Warhawk forums and post your info."

In honor of the new Warhawk-themed PlayStation Home "Command Center," the PSN version of Warhawk will receive a temporary price drop. The game will be available for $19.99, $10 off the regular price. In addition, each booster pack will be available for $4.99 each. You can score all three booster packs for just $9.99. Warhawk fans that haven't jumped into the expansion content will want to take advantage of this limited-time-only pricing.

Stay tuned for today's PlayStation Store update for the price drop. This deal ends on March 11.

The "Warhawk Command Center" will be added to PlayStation Home this week, confirmed Sony during today's Destination PlayStation event. This new game space allows Warhawk fans to plan new strategies together. This is one of the first game spaces to have been revealed for Home -- we're glad to see it finally going live.

Looks like amazon.com is continue their video game sale frenzy. Today, you pick up the popular PS3 multiplayer game, Warhawk, for only $10. That's pretty sweet!

• Warhawk SOLD OUT
  
• Ridge Racer 7 SOLD OUT
  
• Heavenly Sword $30
• Eternal Sonata $33
• PS3 Component AV Cable & USB Cable $10
  

These deals are not from amazon.com:

• 2 Pack of 10' HDMI Cables $10
• SingStar Bundle $36
• The Simpsons Game $10
  

[Via Slickdeals.net]

Read more 'Warhawk' stories

A majority of the Trophies in Warhawk simply involve playing the game for a long time. As you level up, you'll unlock the in-game medals which will in turn unlock Trophies. If you want an easy time getting all the Trophies, grab a second player to help you out. It's cheating, yes. But sometimes you gotta do ... what you gotta do.

The standalone version of the official PS3 headset has been given a price of ¥5000 ($46) on PlayStation.com in Japan. The headset, which will also be packaged in a $60 SOCOM Confrontation bundle, will also be released as a standalone product in North America. We're expecting official details about the standalone headset's price and release date very soon.

Depending on the headset's price in North America, it could become Sony's answer to Wii Play. If the earpiece's standalone price ends up being equivalent to the price in Japan, for $10-15 more it's probably worth just getting the SOCOM bundle (if you have even the slightest interest in the series). If the headset is $40 or less, the $20 difference sounds like it could be used to finance some other product in the glut of this holiday season.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

As promised, Sony and Incognito have rolled the latest Warhawk update out of its hanger, prompting a mandatory install once you start the game. Major additions for version 1.5 of the game include much-anticipated PlayStation Trophies (57 of them, with a good mix of gold, silver, bronze, and "mystery offerings") and support for custom music via the in-game XMB.

We've just installed the patch and are firing up a match with Hanson's "MMMBop" on full blast! Sure, the update's no new-map-and-rocket-packs gala like the upcoming Fallen Star booster pack – which hits tomorrow – but it's nevertheless another nice show of free support for a still very popular, ever-expanding game.

Warhawk has once again been patched up with more free goodies. Simply load up the game and you will be asked to download the 66MB 1.50 patch. At the moment we can only confirm this for Europe, but a US patch should also be made available today, if it's not already. In case you've forgotten what version 1.50 adds to the game (you big sillies), let us refresh your memory.

A new training mode, to get people used to the game, custom soundtracks and trophies are the main new features, but there's plenty more besides. Not bad for free, eh? So get downloading and don't forget to check out our trophy list. We'll update this post once we get confirmation that the patch is out in the US.

[UPDATE] The patch is also available in the US. Go get!

The team at Incognito has been expanding the Warhawk universe in quite a number of ways, with three expansion packs, various free patches and tutorials for beginner players. While the Warhawk community seems rather healthy, it appears that Incognito is going to go another step further: it looks to be making a downloadable demo available in the future. An impromptu Q&A developed on the PlayStation.blog, with one reader asking Dylan Jobe about the possibilitiy of a demo. "What about a demo of sorts? A game like this won't ever see my purchase if I can't even try it out."

To that, Jobe responds: "We're on it." Considering this is an online-only title, how would a Warhawk demo even work? Would there simply be a server dedicated to demo-only players? Or will, it be a time-limited offering? Guess we'll find out whenever Warhawk's better-late-than-never demo appears.

[Thanks, Kyle!]

Following the Leipzig unveiling, Incognito has dated, priced and detailed, in painstaking, um, detail, the third Warhawk expansion pack, Operation: Fallen Star. An update on PlayStation.Blog has the exhaustive breakdown, but let's scroll down to the good part: "Operation: Fallen Star is being released on August 28th worldwide [this Thursday!] and is $7.99 in the PlayStation Store." In addition, a new "Booster Combo Pack" will combine all three Warhawk expansions into a tidy $15.99 download, making the complete Warhawk experience just $46 through the PS Store.

And, in case you missed it, we've embedded an encore presentation of the Fallen Star trailer after the break. Did someone say, rocket packs?

[Thanks, AlterEgo]

As revealed at Leipzig, Warhawk Operation: Fallen Star is coming this week. A new update on the PlayStation.blog confirms a few new details: like the 30 new map configurations, many of which accommodate the new jetpack. "In total there are 10 new layouts for Tau Crater and since the jetpack is a massive, game-changing addition to Warhawk, we included a crap-ton of bonus layouts for the original game too - there are 30 bonus layouts that add jetpacks into the Warhawk's original content."

The jetpack looks fairly intuitive to control, from its description. Like piloting a Warhawk, the shoulder buttons are key to maintaining and controlling your altitude. To prevent everyone from having a jetpack at the same time, the stations which provide the jetpacks will have some "construction time" to space out the availability of new jetpacks.

The Fallen Star expansion will cost $8, but a new bundle that features all three expansions will be available for $16. "That's like getting all 3 Booster-Packs for the price of only 2!!!" For those that are recent additions to the Warhawk world (thanks to its Greatest Hits price), this new bundle is certainly a good way of adding a lot of content to the game.

[Thanks, AlterEgo!]