Sony launch hardware and software at Leipzig
Lots of announcements across the board
20 August 2008 22:19 GMT / By Stuart Miles
Sony has unveiled its line-up for the rest of the year at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany.
While Nintendo and Microsoft has shunned the convention this year, Sony used its time on stage to announce new hardware and software, although, as with E3, the majority were updates rather than ground breaking initatives.
On the hardware front the PSP will get an update adding a microphone for chatting with friends, a brighter better LCD screen and Skype installed out of the box.
David Reeves also announced that to coincide with the launch of PlayTV, the company's new TV tuner for the PS3, it would be launching a 160GB version of the PS3 console for those "out there with an insatiable thirst for downloadable content and an unquenchable need for storage space”.
Finally Sony announced a wireless bolt-on keypad for gamers to get chatting. Due out by the end of the year it's one of those devices you're bound to wonder how you lived without.
On the software front, Sony focused in on key titles it sees at the forefront of making the console socially accepted by the masses rather than the gaming elite.
SingStar gets a new volume for the PS3: Vol 3, that for the first time will include tracks from the King of Pop, no not Elvis, but Michael Jackson as well as Lionel Ritchie and Barry Manilow.
Gamers already signed up to the action with PS2 versions will now be able to play those tracks on the next-gen console. There will also be a SingStar Singalong With Disney.
Keeping with the family angle, the EyeToy has, it seems, once again become centre stage in Sony's strategy to take on the motion controlling Nintendo Wii. EyePet will see kids up and down the land begging mums and dads for the console so they can control a "loveable, simian-like pet that lives in your sitting room".
Working in "Augmented Reality", EyePet is fully aware of people in the room and it will interact with you and its environment.
Then there was Heavy Rain, an interactive thriller that say Sony lets "you really control, rather than just watch the story" thanks to the power of the console.
If that wasn't enough Sony still managed to pack in two further announcements. The first was that it will be licencing the Buzz and Destruction Derby brands to a mobile phone game maker to bring the titles to a mobile near you. Are they prepping the gaming fraternity into getting used to PlayStation titles on your mobile so you'll fully expect a PlayStation phone soon? We aren't sure.
The second is that the corporation that makes everything from hardware to software sees a future in MMOs on the PS3 and strangely the PC.
Three titles have been announced: DC Universe, The Agency and FreeRealms.
The Agency (PS3) is according to Sony "a fast-paced, action shooter set in an present day online persistent world of bullets, bomb blasts, and betrayal".
DC Universe Online, which will be on both the PC and the PS3 is as you might expect an action-focused super-hero game in a fully realised DC Universe Online and Free Realms (PS3), a "vibrant new world for younger players with an exciting mix of reality and fantasy" whatever that is.
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