File this one under ‘rumour’ for now, but it would seem that Phil Harrison’s GDC keynote speech is already ‘out the bag’ so to speak. Somebody has managed to get their grubby mitts on the details of the keynote and has published it up on the Internet for everyone to see. Rejoice!

We’re not meant to know until later on today when Phil Harrison opens up his gob and divulges all, but as is often the case the info seems to have leaked out a bit early. According to a canny poster over at Neoseeker, the Sony keynote will contain the following:

Firmware update available on the 8th for North America/Japan and Asia. European PS3’s will be preloaded with this latest update. And it contains:

• More refined PS Store frontend
• PlayStation Network “integrity enhanced”
• Wallpapers from pictures
• Ability to change background colors
• Sony Connect Store for music and movies added to the PS Store. Hundreds of trailers/full films, songs, videos and mp3’s available for download.
• PlayStation Card option in PS Store enabled.
• PlayStation Lifestyle- Similar to MySpace/YouTube. User generated content and experiences are the key.

But there’s more…

Removal of Emotion Engine chips in North America and Japan to come in April. Reason for this is to reduce costs and focus on enhanced opportunities via software. Benefits include the ability to upscale selected PSOne/PS2 games to 1080i/720p.

Game announcements: Warhawk in June/July, Heavenly Sword delayed, Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 in late 2007.

New content on the PS-Store from March 8th:

• Tekken 6 trailer
• Lair demo & trailer
• Rainbow Six Vegas demo
• EA: Skate trailer
• Battlefield Bad Company trailer
• Warhawk demo
• Virtua Fighter 5 demo
• Virtua Tennis 3 demo & trailer
• GRAW 2: trailer
• Mortal Kombat 2 game
• Killzone trailer

Add in to that a Killzone demo for May 2007 and you have a rather swanky set of announcements. Obviously this all has to be filed under RUMOUR until it is confirmed later today during the keynote, but we’d hope that all the above (and more) will be announced. Stay tuned to Playstatic for updates.