Continuing its Day 1 Digital promotion, PSN has launch-day downloads of Doom 3: BFG Edition and 007 Legends available today. On top of that, all PS Vita users can hop into a PS All-Stars: Battle Royale beta. PS3 owners can get in on it too, but they'll need a PS Plus subscription.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories launches today for the PS Vita, and PS Plus members can add Payday: The Heist to their Instant Game Collection. There's also a large Halloween-themed sale discounting select spooky games and DLC, the complete list of which you can see over on the PlayStation Blog.

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The PSN store is about to get an overhaul next week and Sony's announced some planned PSN maintenance prior to the relaunch. This Monday, October 15, from 4am PT/7am ET until 4pm PT/7am ET, PSN will experience some downtime.

If you've logged into PSN over the past few days or make some time to do so this weekend, you shouldn't be affected. That's not to say you'll have access to all of PSN, though – during the downtime, the PSN Store, PlayStation Home and Account Management sections of PSN will be unavailable.

Backbone Entertainment, the Foundation 9-owned developer of many HD re-releases and retro collections including Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection – as well as the Death Jr. series – has suffered layoffs, Foundation 9 CEO James North-Hearn has told Gamasutra.

"Due to a lower demand for conventional console development, the studio has made some difficult but necessary adjustments in both its capacity and services, with the goal of matching the changing needs of today's market," North-Hearn said. "The dedicated development staff at Backbone has put together some of the studio's best work for our partners in the upcoming fall releases, Dance Central 3 and Midway Arcade Origins."

The scope of the layoffs was not revealed.

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Kids these days sure do seem to like the football, if FIFA 13's crazy-pants sales figures are any indication. The game, which Joystiq's resident sportsball enthusiast Mike Suszek liked an awful lot, has sold "over 4.5 million games across all platforms" since its launch on September 25, according to a press release from EA.

More than 1 million of those sales took place in the UK and within the game's first 48 hours of availability, which falls in line with the chart-topping performance we covered a couple of days ago. FIFA 13 has also been responsible for the most concurrent online users of any EA game to date, with 800,000 footballists throwing down simultaneously on September 30. We suspect, however, that very few of those players drive Range Rovers and are married to Victoria Beckham like most footballists.

Today kicks off Sony's Day 1 Digital initiative, which sees some of the holiday's most high-profile games available as day-one downloads on PlayStation Network. Resident Evil 6 and NBA 2K13 are the first two games available as day one downloads in October.

On top of the Day 1 Digital promotion, PSN users can pre-order Assassin's Creed 3 and snag a pair of Sega PSN games today: Sonic Adventure 2 and NiGHTS into DREAMS. More PSOne Classics are available on PS Vita today, including several Square Enix and Capcom games like Parasite Eve, Chrono Trigger, Resident Evil 2 and many more. Finally, a Silent Hill: Book of Memories demo is available for PS Vita owners.

The full list of this week's content, hit up the PlayStation Blog.

The Art of Video Games exhibit just concluded its run at The Smithsonian and the final number of visitors is in: 686,406. The exhibit ran for six months, from March 16 - September 30, so that's well over 100,000 people per month critiquing the art from such games as BioShock, Diablo 2, Donkey Kong, Fallout 3, Goldeneye 007, Doom 2, Minecraft, Jet Set Radio Future, Shadow of Colossus, Star Fox: Assault, Zaxxon and tons more, all chosen by fans via some smooth Smithsonian voting.

For reference, 686,406 people is slightly more than the entire country of Montenegro, more than six Grenadas, or 617,765 dollar-store items in Grenada (10 percent sales tax).

Hey, have you heard about this PSN thing? Between PSN Play, Day 1 Digital, various PS Plus bonuses, and this new offer, Sony really, really wants you to try PSN.

Today, Sony announced a deal that gets you $20 back in credit if you spend $100 on PSN in October. It's the perfect time to put such an offer out, as it interacts nicely with the Day 1 Digital deal. Buy two games from that program (some of which are already 10% off for PS Plus) and there's your $100. You can then put that $20 toward, say, Spelunker HD. Or anything else on PSN.

The credit will be emailed to you in November, and sent to you as an XMB message if you're using a PS3.

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The PSP Comic Store will close on Sunday October 30, Sony recently announced. PSP and PSP Go owners will not be able to access the store after this weekend, and will not be able to re-download most comics purchased.

Sony is offering a means of backing up purchased content using its Media Go software. The company stopped offering updates to its digital comics service in July 2011.

Update: The PSP Comic Store service will be closing after October 30, not on September 30. We were so close on that one.

Welcome to Living in the Past, a weekly column about what's new in old games. Now get off our lawn.

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Last year, Hudson snuck a selection of Turbografx-16 games onto the PlayStation Store, playable on both PS3 and PSP. It's a very small selection in North America at just ten games (this is the first caveat of many I'll mention), but it includes some of the best on the platform, like Bonk's Adventure, Alien Crush, Neutopia, and not China Warrior.

I feel it's my duty to periodically remind people of the availability of Turbografx-16 games, so now that there's another platform that can play them, namely the PlayStation Vita, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity. These downloads work on both home systems (PS3) and portable systems (PSP and Vita), allowing you to experience the cutting-edge cross-compatibility that these games enjoyed over 20 years ago between the Turbografx-16 and the TurboExpress handheld.

I guess I should bring up all the other caveats before we get too excited.

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Pre-orders are up for PlayStation's "Day 1 Digital" promotion. That news applies to you if you have Plus and want to save money on downloads of Dishonored, Doom 3 BFG, NBA 2K13, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted ... and you can reconcile the silliness of pre-ordering a downloadable game.

Even before Day 1 Digital officially starts, there are some full retail games available digitally, including FIFA 13 and Dead or Alive 5, and older games Starhawk and Mirror's Edge.

Along with that stuff is way too much quality PSN-exclusive material, including Tokyo Jungle and Hell Yeah, both of which were reviewed favorably by Joystiq (in case you missed them!), along with Marvel vs. Capcom Origins, One Piece Pirate Warriors, and more.

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Sony had a big presence at the Tokyo Game Show this year, as evidenced by its hefty booth. Join us on a video tour of the booth, including looks at some of the company's new goodies, including the even slimmer PS3, red and blue Vitas and the HMZ Personal 3D Viewer.

As suspected, Grand Theft Auto 3 is one of this week's PlayStation Network releases. The game first appeared on the Asia PlayStation site last week, scheduled to come to PSN on September 25, and lo, Sony made it so. Sony actually intended to release Rockstar's 2001 classic earlier this year, but hit a delay after a licensing issue with the soundtrack.

Mirror's Edge is also doubly confirmed for release tomorrow, after Sony dropped news of its arrival via last week's PlayStation Blogcast. Neither game has a price yet. Also on the way are One Piece: Pirate Warriors, Tokyo Jungle, Marvel vs. Capcom: Origins, Starhawk, Realms of Ancient War, (the brilliantly named) Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit, Table Ice Hockey (for Vita), Turnabout (PSOne), and Final Fantasy III (for PSP.)

If you like your anthologies digital and downloadable, prepare for smiles tomorrow at the prospect of the Infamous and Ratchet and Clank collections becoming available on PSN, because they will. If not so much, why not prepare for smiles anyway?

Final Fantasy 3 will be available to download on PSP on September 25, as revealed in a recent PlayStation blog.

While both the price of the game and Vita compatibility weren't noted, the PSP version will see a few subtle changes. Namely, players will be able to switch to Final Fantasy 3's original background music, graphics will be optimized to suit the system's 16:9 screen, and it will include an auto-battle system to speed up combat.

Namco Bandai is planning a simultaneous PlayStation Vita and PSP debut for God Eater 2, a sequel that promises faster, more strategic battles and even larger divine delicacies (see: huge monsters) than before.

The action RPG will feature mixed-system ad hoc multiplayer (we're still trying to confirm online capabilities) and the same content across both versions, though the PlayStation Vita will enable superior graphics. God Eater 2 is expected in Japan sometime during 2013. The previous game, dubbed God Eater Burst in America and Europe, was released in 2011.

Tecmo Koei has revealed a new way to feed your lust for demonic blood: a dark fantasy, samurai action title dubbed Toukiden for the PlayStation Vita and PSP.

Developed by Omega Force, the team behind the Warriors franchise, Toukiden will launch sometime in 2013. The new game will have some cross-platform play between both handheld devices.

Toukiden was revealed during Sony's TGS 2012 keynote with a brief trailer, which a female protagonist slicing giant spiders and ogres in a feudal Japan-style setting – which leads us to believe it's based on a true story.

The digital version of Borderlands 2, available as a download alongside its Blu-Ray sibling starting today, leads this week's PSN content dump. Gearbox Software's next installment in the gun grab-em-up is accompanied by Zuma's Revenge and the HD revival of Jet Set Radio.

Additionally, the PlayStation Vita gets 17 more PSOne Classics this week, including Jumping Flash 1 and 2, King of Fighters '99, Cool Boarders 3, Destruction Derby, Jet Moto 2 and many more. PS Plus subscribers can grab a free full game trial of EA reboot SSX and get 10% off on all Rock Band DLC packs as part of Harmonix's big sale. For the full list of this week's content, head over to the PlayStation Blog.