Despite Sony’s efforts to keep the PlayStation 3 system secure (and it seems until now that has been the case), after more than 3-years after the PS3 launch, hacker George Hotz has posted a blog post claiming he has been able to hack the PlayStation 3 system allowing him to have full read and write access to the system and the processor.

If the hack proves to work, users can potentially use homebrewed apps, similar to the Homebrew channel on Nintendo’s Wii system, and play backed up games.

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Microsoft and Sony are set to add new features to their respective gaming consoles, the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.

On November 17, Microsoft will let users update their firmware via Xbox Live that will include many useful and much anticipated new features.

The most important Xbox updates include new Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm (with support for only the U.S. and the U.K. users for Last.fm) integration, on demand 1080p 5.1-channel HD video streaming via Zune Video, and a new News section that streams content from various content partners including MSNBC.

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Sony has just unveiled the new PlayStation 3 Slim (PS3 Slim) at a press conference just now in Cologne, Germany.

The new model is also now more affordable as it’s priced at $299 – half of what the original PS3 debuted at.

The PlayStation 3 Slim includes WiFi and two USB connectors (no infrared). The hard drive has also been re-positioned to the front of the unit for more efficient access.

You can also position the unit vertically with a $24 stand that Sony will also be releasing.

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As people cut back on spending, it seems more of us are staying home and playing video games. According to a report by market research firms NDP Group, Enterbrain, and GfK Chart-Track, video game sales are up 11% in the US, the UK and in Japan. More specifically, video game sales were up 15% in the US, with sales up 26% in the UK. Video game sales were down in Japan by 26% year over year. The drop in Japanese sales can largely be attributed to less games being developed. Japan is a massive market, and a result promoted Nintendo to slash expected earnings by 33% in 2008. Aggregately, video game sales in the US, UK, and Japan totaled 409.9 million units, up from 368 million units in 2007. Console game sales in the US were up 22% from 2007, and general video game software sales were up 36% to 268.4 million units in the US alone. The top video game worldwide in terms of sales was Nintendo’s Mario Kart Wii with 8.94 million sales. The popular video game franchise GTA IV totaled 7.29 million sales.