Rockers rejoice as Rock Band, the iconic music gaming franchise, recently hit Palm’s official app catalog in the U.S. If you’ve seen Rock Band for webOS before, that’s because you live in Europe, as it was uncharacteristically released first in Europe before being released in the U.S.  Putting geography aside, may we say this app rocks?  There is a lot to like here: full version tracks, varied gameplay (including vocals) and smooth if not downright snappy performance.  Like the console versions of Rock Band, the webOS version is from Electronic Arts and is cross-branded from MTV Games and Harmonix Music Systems, which all add up to a very solid gaming experience.  Rock Band for $6.99 is a definite rock solid gaming choice.

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Spanish Pre users needn’t worry about when they’re going to get 3D gaming, as Electronic Arts has come to the rescue. Available now in the App Catalog on Movistar in Spain is a new app: Need For Speed Undercover (GRATIS), for the price of gratis. Gratis being free. And as best as we can tell, it’s the full version that will run you $9.99 in the States.

Yep, that’s right, NFSU is available to Spanish Pre owners for zero dollars down and zero dollars a month. The in-game content has even been translated into Spanish. Amusingly, due to the size of the game, the App Catalog description carries a request to download it over Wi-Fi instead of the HSDPA network.

Oh, and Spanish Pre owners aren’t the only ones that can get in on the hot PDK action in Europe. Those in merry old England (as well as the rest of the United Kingdom and our friends in Ireland) can download the English-language version of Need For Speed Undercover (FREE) for, well, free.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see more PDK demo apps like Need For Speed coming to the European App Catalog in the near future. With paid apps due to launch across the pond next month, developers will want to get a taste of their apps in the mouths of webOS users starving for more application action.

Thanks to pitsop for the tip!

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So yesterday might have been a big day at CES 2010 for Palm. We got the Palm Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus, and they’re going to be exclusive to Verizon. We got the Pre headed to SFR in France. We got Flash, a webOS App Gallery on PreCentral, video recording, and webOS 1.4. But what’s exciting, and what we get right now, is new apps. And those new apps come with 3D gaming, ala the iPhone. In fact, Palm’s new Plug-in Development Kit allows developers to make C and C++ apps that will work beautifully on webOS. As such, developers like EA, Gameloft, and Glu are here and showing off what that delicious hardware is really capable of. Curious what games are available? Well, while you’re waiting for the App Catalog to load, we recommend you hope right past the break and catch a glimpse for yourself of our daily list.

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It’s a veritable cornucopia of appitude! Yesterday brought us several new apps along side a couple dozen updates to existing apps As is standard procedure nowadays (yay!), it’s too long a list for the front page, so you can hop on over and take a gander past the break. Electronic Arts finally got in on the paid apps game with full versions of both Connect 4 and Tetris Mania, so actually you should take a gander. Why? Because it’s apps, and apps are important. This is the part where you nod knowingly and click “Read the rest of this entry.”

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[ youtube link ]

Color us skeptical, but right now we have little reason not to believe PreCentral forum member Casperstar and the above video that he posted. Yes, that is a Palm Pre playing Electronic Arts’ Need For Speed Underground, and playing it well – like an iPhone. Obviously, something like this just isn’t possible given the current web tools-based Mojo SDK, it’s not even something that’s possible with the current GPU-disabled implementation of webOS.

While this could very well be a well-timed video, smoke, and mirrors show, we’re inclined to believe that it is the real deal, especially after corroboration by reliable inside-information forum member Modular. Casperstar claims that the video is of a friend’s Pre, a friend that works at Palm and is apparently willing to not only let it be videotaped, but even sent in two screen caps of the App Catalog on his device. The images show a view of a NFS-2G app and an apps list counting to 495 (!). While something like this would be easy to Photoshop together, there’s enough rough edges to the app view that give us a definite work-in-progress vibe. Then there’s that mention of requiring Nova 1.3.X – if you’ve been with the Palm community for a few years you may remember the rumblings of a Nova device or OS having been in development in Sunnyvale.

All that said, we’re hopeful that this is the real deal, and it shows that Palm has made more behind-the-scenes progress than this blogger expected. An update to webOS that enables the GPU and an update to the SDK that provides native access for apps like this would be a huge huge huge (yes, triple huge) coup for Palm and would quickly silence critics of the lack of quality apps. Is this something we’re likely to see soon? Boy, we hope so, but we wouldn’t count on it. As Casperstar said, this is internal testing material, not release candidate.

Oh, and this mystery version of webOS also has solved the app limit issue that plagues current Pre and Pixi owners.

As always, with something like this you should set aside a grain or two of salt. Palm obviously won’t confirm or deny this sort of stuff and we never see the game opened or closed. It would be easy enough to fake this with a combination of videos, patches, practice, a bit of Photoshop magic, patience, and a twisted sense of humor. Still… our fingers are most definitely crossed. We want to believe.

UPDATE: The MX Web has taken a close look at the App Catalog list image and believes this to be a hoax given a number of discrepancies between it and the App Catalog currently on devices. We’re not sure it’s enough to debunk this, given the other evidence that doesn’t quite match up but could easily be attributed to internal testing, but we as always remain skeptical.

Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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