Did Natal put Sony's E3 keynote in second place?

PSP Go appears

Less of a surprise, due to a mass-scale leak the previous week, was the new PSP Go. It's a response to both the rampant PSP hack/homebrew scene, and to the likes of the iPhone/iPod Touch.

While, on that latter point, it might have waded into a battle it can't win, the decision to not simply go head to head with Nintendo's DS/DSi range seems the right one.

PSP go

SHRINKING FEELING: The Go is smaller and lighter than the original PSP, with 16Gb on onboard memory

Sony's leaning on technology rather than games, something Nintendo seems to roundly defeat them on in the mobile sector, so attempting to transform the PSP into the omni-gadget makes it stand out that much more.

That said, details on downloadable media content were sparse, and the reduced screensize actually makes it less appealing as a movie player than the original PSP.

Still, the cumbersome UMD format is essentially dead in the wake of the onboard memory-only Go, and hopefully that's a sign Sony isfinally putting its historical love of proprietary formats behind it.

Besting Microsoft's show-stopping Natal reveal was always going to be impossible, but Sony managed a comfortable second place in the conference wars. In the wake of its demo, the PS3 certainly seems like a healthy and exciting games platform – perhaps more so than ever.

God of war

SHOW STOPPER: Next year's God of War III was one of the show-stopping games. Very over the top, very brutal

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