Here’s what caught my eye last week:

Microsoft is blocking 3rd-party memory units in the latest Dashboard update [Joystiq]. They are determined to keep an iron grip on that sweet sweet peripheral cash, even though both the Japanese platform holders have moved on to non-proprietary memory cards and attachments. Any time you buy an “unsupported” 3rd-party peripheral you do run the risk of something like this happening, but it kind of sucks for those who wanted to save a few bucks and have been denied use of their memory unit after buying it.

Peter Moore of Electronic Arts made some interesting comments recently [NeoGAF], referring to disc-based platforms as “burning” (as in, we are on a burning boat). This is probably the beginning of a much longer effort to start transitioning their publishing empire to more digital-only services. It’s inevitable really, although I’m sure this will be a bumpy period for the next few years. Everybody screamed about Steam when it first rolled out, and now look at it – it’s practically mandatory for PC gaming.

A rumour is making the rounds that we’ll see a “PSP2″ in 2010 [thesixthaxis]. The details on the graphics chip are credible; the timeline is not. Fascinating to see the shift in focus to mobile game chips. It used to be all about how much power you could cram into your triple-fanned liquid-cooled dual-slot PC card, and now the likes of ATI and nVidia are being asked to do the same thing in the size of a dime. Anyways, I can’t see the possibility of a PSP2 unveiling until at least 2011.

Mass Effect 2 will ship on January 26 in North America [gamasutra]. That will mark the beginning of second Christmas for the wave of Q1 games.

There’s an interesting article about the perception and portrayal of sex in videogames here [PopMatters]. It details a scene in Heavy Rain where the player, as the female protagonist, is forced to strip for a slimy mob boss. Of course in this situation, it is the player that is being demeaned, rather than watching a non-player-character go through the same thing. A really fascinating bit of turnabout. I admire David Cage’s willingness to specifically inflict discomfort on his audience. This is where truly “adult” games need to go, to explore themes that go beyond the usual amusement-park mentality.