If you're a PlayStation 3 owner and have been playing Black Ops on the PS3, or rather in the recent weeks following the downtime NOT playing Black Ops, you've been missing out on the latest DLC, Escalation.

The good news is that you can begin playing Call of Duty again on your PlayStation 3 since PSN is back up and best of all Activisions second DLC is coming to PlayStation 3 on June 10th.

Escalation pack includes four new multiplayer maps: Hotel, Zoo, Convoy, and Stockpile. Also included in the release is the zombie hit Call of the Dead. To kick off this release, June 10th is also the start of the double XP weekend that will end June 12th. Great timing to get that next prestige level.

Feels like its been forever since the PlayStation Store was online, but we can now browse and make purchases on the PlayStation Store again.  Here is the official word from the PlayStation Blog:

The PlayStation Store is back online and thank you everyone for your patience. You will notice a huge lineup of new downloadable games, demos, add-on content, themes, avatars and videos. Also, PlayStation Plus has been updated with new full game trials, free games and DLC, free avatars and even more discounts.

You may have noticed that the content promised as part of the Welcome Back offer is not yet live. It is currently in the final stages of testing and will be available to download soon; we’ll be sure to let you know when.

The next PlayStation Store and PlayStation Plus update will be this Friday, June 3, and then we will roll right into some special publishes starting next week for E3 (so be sure to check back daily!).

Not really a surprise, but Sony has gone on record as saying they are working on the PlayStation 4.

Sony's executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato made the revelation on a conference call to investors today. He was asked to explain increased research and development (R&D) costs.

"For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," he said, "but this is a platform business, so for the future platform - when we'll be introducing what product I cannot discuss that - but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there."

You won't see anything at E3 this year about PlayStation 4, but I would bet we'll see it in 2012.

Color me intrigued with the announcement of the PSP Remaster Series.  Essentially, this means we'll see select PSP games remade for the PlayStation 3 with HD graphics and additional content.  The first game to get this treatment will be Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD.  Here is the first trailer for the remake:

But going a bit further into what the PSP Remaster Series is:

Those who are worried that Sony intends to release a bunch of lackluster PSP ports can rest easy: In addition to the HD visuals, Sony is promising new content for the games, plus control schemes designed for the PS3 controller. Stereoscopic 3D support and ad-hoc multiplayer will also be supported for certain games. Sony also revealed that save files can be swapped between the PS3 and PSP versions of the games, allowing you to play on your television at home, then take the game on the road with your PSP, something that Hideo Kojima showed interest in last year.

When I bought Final Fantasy 7 off the PlayStation Network last year, I put it on my PSP.  I was doing some traveling at the time and it was easier for me to play that way.  Now what I would really love is to be able to play it on my PSP and have my save file sync up to PSN and be able to play it on my PlayStation 3 and not need to screw with moving save files, etc.  Make it happen Sony!