LittleBigPlanet

That isn't a picture of this supposed 'LittleBigPlanet Karting', although we have one inside. It's the official DLC pack for ModNation Racers. Which, assuming the reported announcement is true, does make us wonder why we need a LBP kart racing game anyway...

Neil McPhillips writes "Something magical recently happened in the world of LittleBigPlanet - thanks to our awesome community, the LBP franchise now has more than 6 million user-generated games and levels created by fans and uploaded online to the PlayStation Network! As always, wed like to extend a HUGE thank you to everyone contributing, whether youre creating, sharing, or just playing. Here are a few nuggets we found over the weekend.

SystemLink: "This week a year ago, Media Molecule launched LittleBigPlanet 2 from a homemade space-rocket into the fluffy stratosphere of creative cuteness. To celebrate the milestone, they've updated fans via Twitter on just how the Devil has used your idle thumbs."

Media Molecule spent £4.1 million ($6.3 million) on research and development in its last fiscal year, as the Sony studio seeks to mitigate its risks from relying solely on the LittleBigPlanet franchise.

NowGamer: LittleBigPlanet's upcoming PS Vita outing will be the biggest LBP game to date according to SCEE.

Dualshock Nexus: Well Minecraft 1.9 Pre-release 2 was released recently and there's one particular song that sounds almost exactly like a song from LittleBigPlanet. The question is, did C418 steal the song?

GamerDeals.net: With the PS3 price cut dropping this week, Amazon is offering an incredible deal today for those just joining the PS3 party! Grab the PS3 Ultimate Combo Pack including PS3 Dualshock 3 Controller + LittleBigPlanet Game of the Year for $39.99 (Reg. $59.99) Today!

Being the owner of a PlayStation 3, you may well of heard of this little game called LittleBigPlanet, you may even of heard of its creators, the excellent UK studio Media Molecule, however you may not though of heard of Mr John Beech. Well we think its about time you do who he is. John is a designer at Media Molecule and he is currently embarking on a 2450 mile trip around the entire UK in a Kayak! Now if youve taken a trip to LittleBigPlanet youll know the folks who created it are a little....

Sony stuck by Media Molecule when most other publishers would have cut their losses and walked away, the studio's creative director has said. Both Mark Healey and fellow Media Molecule co-founder Kareem Ettouney state that Sony played a crucial role in the development of LittleBigPlanet. Making a project that has a very long service tail requires a lot of support, and Sony were really behind that, Ettouney told VideoGamer.com at Develop last week. I think they were good at being very hands-off in the early stages, added Healey. We were a new company, and they helped us a lot with the setting up of that, which was a whole issue in itself.

Gran Turmiso 5, inFAMOUS 2, LittleBigPlanet and Motorstorm Apocalypse have all benefited from an extensive online marketing campaign that has been focused around Facebook. Many of these Facebook Apps provide users with 5 minutes of fun with the biggest draw being the ability to unlock in-game rewards, PlayStation Home goodies or the odd theme here and there. With Killzone 3 SCEE really pushed the boat out, with their extremely inventive ISA Ultimate Recruit program, that bypassed Facebook in favour of a dedicated website. Things went a little wrong with the inFAMOUS 2 Anarchy game. It was basically an Empire City-flavoured edition of Farmville, and it was as much fun as sticking your finger into a plug socket (for those wondering thats not very fun at all)