Take Two label Rockstar Games announced that it has partnered with music producer Timbaland for a PSP music creation application called Beaterator. The software is being developed by Rockstar Leeds for release this summer.

Rockstar describes Beaterator for the PSP as “both a powerful music mixer with robust beatmaking features, as well as a highly addictive collection of original music and rhythm games and challenge modes.”

“Music has always been a hugely important part of everything we do here,” said Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games. “Two years ago, we launched a web-based version of Beaterator on our own website and people really embraced it.”

He added: “That inspired us to build and create something very interactive and unique. Having Timbaland involved in the game is a real honor and only adds to our excitement about the title.”

Microsoft has announced the next leg in its previously announced Live Anywhere solution first revealed at E3 2006, by launching Games for Windows Live on May 8 alongside the Windows Vista version of Halo 2. The service will allow users to have one Gamertag, profile, reputation, and more across both the PC and Xbox Live platforms.

And while Halo 2 will only support gameplay between other PC users, the June release of Shadowrun for both the PC and Xbox 360 will allow of cross platform online matches. Later in 2007 Microsoft will also release a PC version of the Xbox Live Arcade title UNO, allowing for existing XBLA players to take on their friends in the PC world in the cutthroat world of of calling “UNO!”

But nothing in life is free. Just like with Xbox Live, membership for Games for Windows Live will come in two tiers, free Silver memberships and paid Gold memberships costing $49.95 annually. The free membership permits users to only play against other PC players, but also affords the ability to have a single online presences across both the PC and Xbox 360, as well as a single friends list and the ability to earn single player achievements. By upgrading to Gold, players get the cross platform gameplay, as well as multiplayer matchmaking and mutliplayer achievements.

Also worth noting is this in one price across both platforms, so if you are already an Xbox Live Gold member user, you already are a Games for Windows Live subscriber and will be good to go on May 8. Similarly, if a Windows users hops on board with this service and then later picks up an Xbox 360, he or she will automatically have the benefit of a Xbox Live Gold membership as well.

I spoke with Microsoft’s Xbox Live general manager JJ Richards on this announcement yesterday afternoon, and have a [url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13131]Q&A up on Gamasutra[/url] that may help to address any lingering questions. One of the issues I brought up to him was the concept of chatting, since PC users have several options at their disposal, as opposed to the single unified option found in Xbox Live, tho which he responded: “We will continue to offer consumers choice. We’ll leave it up to the developers as far as how and what types of voice chat will be available in certain games.”

He continued: “For the service itself, we have private chat among players in voice and text for free with Silver memberships, with in-game voice chat for Gold.”

Getting free swag and gifts with games is always fun. I like t-shirts as much as the next guy. But when swag shows up at the office that is actually useful…well, that is certainly a cause for celebration. Take today’s arrival of Custom Robo Arena for the Nintendo DS. Nintendo saw fit to include this nifty oversized key chain, which transforms into a handy screwdriver set. Just think of all of the things I could fix around the house if, well, I knew what I was doing.

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Artificial Studios and publisher South Peak announced that the upcoming Xbox 360 and PC top down mutliplayer action game Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia has slipped slightly from its previously expected April release, and is now scheduled to launch for both platforms on May 15. Last week during GDC the game was touted as being “nearly finished”, and set to go off to Microsoft in “a couple weeks.”

Also interesting, it looks like the extra time might have been put towards making the game support 4 player co-op over Xbox Live according to statements made by Artificial Studios’s CEO Jeremy Stieglitz during a GDC demonstration of Unreal Engine 3, the engine that powers Monster Madness. This feature that has up until now been left strictly for local play, but has been requested by forum communities for some time. Look for this one to be one of the dark horse games to really shine for the Xbox 360 especially this summer.