The upcoming reboot if the Spider-Man franchise has a larger air of mystery then usual for a tent poll comic book film. This comes from the fact that just a couple years ago the franchise was alive and relativity healthy, but Sony went directly for a reboot instead of riding the Raimi series to an unfortunate end.

Sony recently released the official synopsis for the film which confirms what a lot of people inferred from the trailers and production stories.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets.

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As most people know, many of the electronic components sold in the US are manufactured overseas because of cheaper labor costs. This has always been a mixed blessing as it provides more affordable products, but also prevents more jobs from coming to American shores. Though from the look of things, not many American laborers would be lining up for a job at Foxconn.

Foxconn, one of the world’s largest electronic component manufacturers for companies such as Apple, Dell, HP, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, reportedly dealt with the threat of a mass suicide from some 300 workers from the Foxconn Technology Park in Wuhan, China from the WantChina Times. Gameplanet also reports that these workers were specific to the XBox 360 line.

The dispute reportedly began after workers went to company officials looking for wage increases. Foxconn denied the request and offered employees the option to either continue working at the current wage or be given a dismissal package. Many opted for the latter. Upon this, Foxconn reneged on the offer.

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer, in response to the situation was quoted, “Foxconn has been an important partner of ours and remains an important partner. I trust them as a responsible company to continue to evolve their process and work relationships… That is something we remain committed to – the safe and ethical treatment of people who build our products. That’s a core value of our company.”

Later, Microsoft released a general statement regarding the incident stating, “Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue… We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge. Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy.”

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The PS Vita is Sony’s latest attempt to conquer the handheld gaming market. The technology is impressive, but the marketplace has never been more crowded with the growth of phone and tablet gaming, and the of course Nintendo’s iron grip on portables. The Vita hit stores in Japan last week in advance of it’s early 2012 worldwide release and it made a very admirable showing.

Reuters is reporting that the first two days of the system’s launch saw 321,400 units sold. That number is smaller than the Nintendo 3DS’ initial launch of 371,00 units sold, but is impressive considering the context.

The 3Ds was launching a new technology attached to the incredible successful DS brand. The Vita is coming out after a history of sub par Sony portable devices, including the PSP Go which was a bomb. The sales numbers are very nice for Sony but they need to maintain sales over a few years before the new portable device can be called a win.

In hopes to maintain a strong open for the device Sony has a solid 24 game launch window lineup and will be pushing PS3 to PS Vita connection to make the device a regular part of Sony gamer’s experience.

The Vita will be hitting US shelves in February in Wifi and 3G/Wifi models.

Sony Online’s DC Universe Online has had a pretty rough year. Between the server blackouts, the massive PSN hack, and dealing with a paid service to a broke community, they’ve fallen on some hard times.

But that isn’t stopping them from releasing tons of new content for their now free DC Universe Online. Just a few months ago, we were opened up to the world of Green Lantern with their Fight for the Light DLC. Now their continuing in the trend with a whole Flash universe-based DLC in Lightning Strikes.

Set to hit your console and PC next week on December 6th, the new features include a brand new Eletricity Power set, as well as an all new map, new challenges, and tons of Flash-based characters for you to interact with.

We’ve got a brand new trailer highlighting these features for you to check out after the jump, as well as the full rundown on what the DLC includes. Take a look at that after the jump, and don’t forget to grab DC Universe Online for FREE on PC and PS3 now.

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That’s right folks, the often delayed and occassionally in trouble next James Bond adventure is now a reality. In fact, it even has a title: Skyfall.

The announcement was made today at a London press conference by producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who confirmed that stars Daniel Craig and Judi Dench will indeed return in the Sam Mendes-directed 23rd James Bond adventure. Also confirmed were actors Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes, who will join the previously announced Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw in the film.

“We’re so delighted to have Sam Mendes direct Skyfall and be working once again with Daniel Craig,” Wilson and Broccoli said in a joint statement. “We’ve a great script, an extraordinary cast and an incredibly talented creative team for this latest James Bond adventure.”

In Skyfall “Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.” Mmm, tested loyalties and Bond stopping at nothing to save the world?

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How often do you speculate and daydream on what your favorite video game characters would look like if they had their day and got a live action movie adaptation? What would Drake from Uncharted look like or how tall would Kratos from God of War be in comparison to other folks? Well that’s where this brand new commercial from Sony helps us out.

This new commercial to promote the PS3 has literally dozens of characters from your favorite PlayStation games giving thanks to us, the gamer, for always being there and getting them out of those tough binds. YouTube user shikhargautam broke down which characters we can see in order of when they appear.

All characters, as they appear: 0:47 Nathan Drake (Uncharted 3), Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII) 0:56 Cole (inFamous) with a Helghast (Killzone) behind 1:00 Isaac Clarke (Dead Space), Ghost (CoD: MW2), Agent 47 (Hitman) 1:06 Solid Snake (MGS4) 1:15 Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal), Chell (Portal) 1:18 Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet) 1:20 Athena and Kratos (God of War) 1:23 Paul (Tekken) 1:38Little Sister (BioShock) 1:46 Ezio (Assassin’s Creed 2) 1:50 ISA soldier (Killzone)1:52 Chimera Hybrid (Resistance)

There may even be a few that he missed, so check out the commercial after the jump.

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When DC Universe Online launched earlier this year, it was possible to recreate almost any character, classic or modern, that fans of comics have loved for decades. There was one group of heroes and villains though that was noticeably left out in terms of power sets though. The Lanterns. Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and all the others had no presence in DC Universe Online from the player community. Sure they could fight alongside Hal Jordan but without a power ring of their own where is the fun in that?

Coming at the end of summer, the Fight for the Light expansion comes to DC Universe Online allowing ring based power sets to create a new array of combat options. Boxing gloves, freight trains, fighter jets, machine guns and more all produced by little green rings will up the ante in DCUO.

At Comic-Con, Mark Anderson from Sony Online Entertainment spoke with The Flickcast about what we would see in this expansion. In addition to seeing sights like Coast City or the Science Cells on Oa, the expansion will also help wrap up the story with Brainiac and the anomalies of the power rings. Players will be given the role as Corps Reserve members to help explain why so many lanterns are running around in a single sector.

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Last weekend, the world was taken by surprise as Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger blew past the final Harry Potter film and made it to the #1 spot in its very first weekend. Since then, the film has grossed over $115 million here in the US and upwards of $170 million worldwide. Not bad for the best superhero film of the year (according to Rotten Tomatoes).

This weekend, Cap may have gotten knocked off the top spot and only made roughly $24 million, but the more interesting part is the battle between Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens and Sony’s The Smurfs. Both films opened with an estimated $36.2 million in the domestic, and while Smurfs may be the winner overseas, with a total of $40 million worldwide, that’s simply because it’s the only film to have a foreign opening.

Not a very strong opening for either film (unless you consider Smurfs to be a small film), but the true champion will be determined tomorrow afternoon when the official numbers arrive for the domestic box office.

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After nearly two and a half months since hackers compromised its network, it looks like Sony is close to restoring full service for users of its PlayStation network later this week. The final piece will be when the company takes the service back online in Japan. Of course, the company has been saying it will get things back online for awhile now.

According to Bloomberg, Sony has been working with the FBI to identify the LulzSec hackers who were responsible for the attack on its San Diego data centers, during which the hackers obtained account information for more than 100 Million PlayStation Network users. Reportedly, LulzSec rented and used servers from Amazon.com’s cloud service to facilitate the attack.

The attack is the second-largest online data breach in U.S. history, and will cost the company an estimated $173 Million in direct costs to repair and shore up its security. The actual cost in terms of the company’s brand and consumer confidence has yet to be measured.

Chairman Howard Stringer told shareholders last week the services will continue to be a main source of growth. Sony CEO Howard Stringer apologized after the attacks and offered a year of identity theft protection to those affected by the breach, as well as a free month of access to PSN.

In what was expected to be one of the smaller opening weekends in this year’s epic summer movie season but Disney and Pixar’s Cars 2 ended up surprising almost everyone with an estimated $68 million take at the domestic box office.

Not only did Cars 2 have the biggest 3-day pull of the year so far, it blew the original 2006 film out of the water by an astounding $8 million lead. The newest film pulled in over $110 million worldwide, which is quite impressive, considering how most Pixar films perform overseas.

In second place this weekend was the raunchy comedy from Sony/Columbia, Bad Teacher. The film performed mildly well domestically, pulling in an estimated $31 million and upwards of $20 million overseas.

Another film that opened this weekend made some impressive strides as well, with the indie documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. The film only opened in 24 screens and managed to pull in $105,000. Not bad for CoCo.

Next weekend, expect the results to be skewed, as Transformers: Dark of the Moon opens to 4,000 screens on Wednesday. Those who miss out on the robot-on-robot action will get Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in Larry Crowne.

The spree of hacking attacks against video game publishers continues. This time around Sega is the victim. Today, the company has confirmed that personal data from 1.3 million user accounts was stolen during a recent security breach, according to reports.

During the attack, hackers were able to obtain email addresses, encrypted passwords, birth dates and names of Sega Pass network users. The hackers did not access credit card data, however. As a result of the attack, Sega’s Sega Pass network has been taken offline.

“We are deeply sorry for causing trouble to our customers. We want to work on strengthening security,” Yoko Nagasawa, a Sega spokeswoman, said. As yet, no group has taken credit for the attack.

With all this hacking going on, you have to wonder who’s next?

With E3 coming to a close today it’s time to take a look at the rest of the photos we took over the last three days. Well, we can’t actually show you all of the photos due to several factors: we shot way too many and some of them contain embarrassing moments best left for a night of cocktails at Trader Vic’s.

However, we do have quite a few we can share so in this gallery we’ve included those. Yes, they contain more booths, some gameplay, cool cars and, of course, a selection of beautiful booth babes.

What E3 would be complete without them? A less beautiful experience to say the least.

Click through for all the pics. See you next year!

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