Sony To Discontinue YouTube and Music Unlimited On Its PlayStation Devices, Including PS Vita...

Sony has today announced changes to some of its PlayStation applications. Amongst those applications affected are Sony's music-streaming app, Music Unlimited, which is due to be discontinued on the 29th of March 2015, and the popular video-streaming app, YouTube, which is set to be discontinued in April 2015.

The news has come as somewhat of a disappointment to fans of these two applications, but never fear: Sony has announced that it will be replacing its Music Unlimited service with a brand new music-streaming service called PlayStation Music, which will be powered by the extremely popular music-streaming service, Spotify.

Fans of the PlayStation YouTube app will also be pleased to hear that they will still be able to access the mobile web version of YouTube from their console's Internet browser, so they can enjoy all the videos that they used to get from the application itself.

Sony has also announced that they will be discontinuing the Near and Maps applications on the PS Vita console soon. This is expected to occur some time in March 2015 via a System Update. It is not yet known whether these applications will be replaced with new versions of similar applications or not but it is clear that some serious changes are afoot...Watch this space!

Sony and Nintendo's E3 Handheld Line-ups revealed...

There is only three days to go before one of the biggest events in the gaming calendar gets underway in Los Angeles, and already the rumors have been circulating.

E3 2014  (AKA The Electronic Entertainment Expo), promises an exciting line-up of games and news of future releases for almost every games console in existence, so what does this mean for the Nintendo 3DS and Sony's PS Vita  handheld gaming devices?

As well as the usual E3 conference, which this year takes place at 6pm on Monday the 9th June 2014 Pacific Time (or a very early 2 a.m. BST on Tuesday 10th June 2014 for UK fans who wish to watch the live-stream of the event),  Sony has also decided that it will show a total of seventy different games in its gaming booths, including several PS Vita titles such as:

(click on each link for more information about the game or trailers)

•Big Fest 

•Disgaea 4: A Promise revisited 

•Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed

•CounterSpy 

•Freedom Wars

•Gravity Crash Ultra

•Gunship X

•Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

•Hyper Light Drifter 

•Invizimals: The Alliance

•Legend of Raven

•MechRunner

•Metrico 

•MLB 14 The Show

•Murasaki Baby

•One Way Trip

•PS Vita Pets

•PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate

•Race the Sun

•Rogue Legacy 

•Super Exploding Zoo

•Switch Galaxy Ultra

•To Leave 

Meanwhile, Nintendo has opted for the second year in a row to not participate in an official E3 Press conference. Instead, they have chosen to stream their own special Nintendo Direct broadcast at 9pm on Tuesday the 10th June 2014 Pacific Time (that's 5 p.m. BST for UK fans).

As well as their various announcements for the Wii and Wii U, Nintendo are also expected to reveal a few new 3DS titles, including an as yet unnamed Starfox 64 adventure and Project S.T.E.A.M (Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace).

Furthermore, Nintendo have already announced that the presentation will reveal a brand new NFP (AKA Nintendo Figurine Platform/NFC Featured Platform) range of toys. For those of you who have never heard of NFP, these are special figurines that have Near Field Communication built into them, which allow them to interact within virtual games in the same way that Skylanders or Disney Infinity figurines do.

This year's E3 is shaping up to be quite exciting. If you wish to watch the Press Conferences for yourself, both the Playstation.blog and official Nintendo websites will be streaming the relevant conferences live as they happen in Los Angeles.

Alternatively, PS4 owners may wish to watch the Sony Conference on the PS4's UStream app, or those of you with Youtube accounts will be able to gain access to the Ustream website by clicking the link in the E3 trailer video. Please note, that an age restriction does apply to the Ustream site and viewers will be required to give their birthday details before being allowed to view any of the live footage. Lastly, GameSpot will be offering its readers the chance to watch all the E3 conferences live, so there really is no excuse to miss out on the action.

Just a little reminder for UK fans:

The Nintendo broadcast won't be taking place at E3, but will be streamed live from the Nintendo HUB (on the Nintendo website) at 5 p.m. on Tuesday the 10th June 2014, British Standard Time.

Meanwhile, Sony's Press conference will be streamed live on any of the various channels listed above at 2 a.m. (early morning) on Tuesday the 10th June 2014.

HAVE YOUR SAY...

Which shows/announcements are you most looking forward to at this year's E3 conference?

If you have any comments, suggestions or wishlists for the E3 conference, then why not leave a comment in the box below? Mini Gamers loves to hear from you.

Free Youtube App Comes to the 3DS

YouTube has finally reached the 3DS. Now users can enjoy browsing the latest game trailers and video walkthrough directly on their 3DS console.

Mini Gamers checked out the nifty little application, and found that the videos were surprisingly clear to view. The application can be downloaded from the Nintendo eShop for FREE, and has easy to navigate menus and buttons, which made the overall browsing experience quite pleasant.

However, those of you who were expecting to watch and download the latest batch of 3D videos on offer, are sure to be disappointed. The 3DS version of YouTube has no 3D support whatsoever, and any attempt to watch a 3D video resulted in some unsightly double-vision, as the 3D images are merely displayed as two identical screens (designed to be viewed with 3D glasses) rather than as a whole 3D image.

For those of you who just wish to browse videos as you would normally do on the PC or home consoles etc., this is a very handy application. However, the lack of 3D support on a console which so heavily on 3D as its unique selling-point seems like a gross oversight, and it also fails to make the 3DS version of YouTube any more interesting than the thousands of YouTube applications that can be found on various smartphones across the country, which is just such a shame.