Sony unveils a new PlayStation Store, THQ closes its Australian offices, and Capcom announces a classic Darkstalkers collection

While not the busiest week in gaming news, a few big stories managed to drop over the last week. Click through for the three biggest stories for the week of October 8:

New PlayStation Store to launch Oct. 23

Sony Friday announced it is re-launching its digital marketplace, sharing the first glimpse of a completely new design and promising to add features and improve functionality.

Coming Oct. 23 to North America (and a few days earlier to European gamers), the updated PlayStation Store will adopt a more graphical interface, highlight content with familiar characters and appears to be streamlining navigation with smaller, more concise menus.

VG24/7 reports content will now be organized by game rather than category, and pages will scroll across the screen like carousels. The search function will be improved to begin returning results before the user finishes typing and to accept abbreviations and misspellings. Users will be able to view content filtered by criteria such as price and peripheral support.

Check the PlayStation Blog for screenshots of the updated store.

THQ to close Australian offices; about 18 jobs to be affected

According to industry news site Gamasutra, THQ will be closing its Melbourne, Australia, publishing offices within the coming months as a result of a new distribution agreement. About 18 jobs will be eliminated due to the closure.

Under the agreement with All Interactive Entertainment, AIE will distribute THQ products in Australia going forward, precluding the need to continue oper