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Sony's unveiled two new hardware items at Leipzig today along with a smattering of new titles. A third PSP model has been announced for delivery in under two months worldwide, the PSP-3000. The new model features a new and improved screen with better anti-glare and color depth and an integrated microphone. Headsets will still apparently work, as will the video out introduced in the PSP-2000 model.

Play your PS2 SingStar Songs on PS3

A coworker of mine signed on with her husband's desire to pick up a PS3 earlier this summer primarily because SingStar PS3 was coming out. She'd bought maybe four or five SingStar games on the PS2 up until then and, once they had Sony's big black machine, she started happily picking and choosing from the online store with her PS3 version of SingStar.

A pair of LittleBigPlanet sites have opened, the first being the official game site LittleBigPlanet.com resplendent with still images and menu navigation animations that clearly depict what the grainy hands-on videos of recent conferences have hinted at. The thing is still stupendously adorable.

The second site is the LittleBigPlanet.us.PlayStation.com site, affectionately known as the LittleBigPlanet News site. This one has a snappy little sticker demo when you click on the sackboy. Just pick a sticker from the pop-up, drag the arrow icon to grow and rotate it, then click the middle of the sticker to drag it around the page. It's a simple thing that hints at a fraction of the final game's creative options and introduces some terminology, namely the sticker.

Both of these things are great to see, and it shows that the game I think could be the Game Of The Year on all systems is really, finally nearing completion. It might have a hard time getting past Old Snake to get the award, especially given that it probably won't have a deep plot or backstory like Kojima has built for 20 years now.

So why I haven't I preordered it? That's easy. Because nobody can guarantee me I won't be waiting a few days after it ships for it to be at the EB/Gamestop or even longer to get it by mail. Instead I'll opt to visit my local superstore and snap it up off the shelves, maybe even with a discount on day one. I got GTA4 with a $10 gift card when I was fully prepared to pay full price. Why would I cut off that possibility?

October 21st is the day the game is supposed to ship according to Amazon, so let's hope it lands on the 22nd. I'll be waiting.

PixelJunk Eden for the PlayStation 3 went from a "What the?

A couple of weeks ago on July 10th gamers who have enjoyed going way too fast and slamming into tings online and offline on their PS3 with Burnout Paradise got treated to the Cagney update. Xbox 360 gamers with Burnout Paradise got hold music instead.

Before I give my thoughts on the three press conferences that have been put on over the past day and a half I'll just remind the audience that I currently own a Sony PS3 and PSP and don't own any other gaming platforms, namely those produced by Microsoft or Nintendo. I've also based my impressions not on the conferences themselves -- that would take too long -- but Joystiq's very good liveblogging along with a little reading online afterwords. As for my thoughts on Nintendo and Microsoft, I'm generally neutral on Nintendo even though I'm as shocked as anyone else at their runaway success this generation and I'm generally hostile towards Microsoft mostly because of their long history of underhanded and anticompetitive activities in the PC space.

The Common Theme
Across all three conferences I noticed what I think is the operative theme: pleasing your established base. To be sure some feints were made into markets that aren't the primary one for each of the big three, but almost everything announced for each system caters to the crowd currently owning and using that console. Now if you're trying to steal gamers away from a console in the same space this isn't so bad, but if you're trying to grow your console's appeal this isn't how to do it.

Sony has released the 2.41 firmware as of very early this morning, hopefully closing a short and embarassing chapter in their firmware history.  I've applied the update and it went smoothly even though, for me, 2.40 had worked just fine as well.

Sony's flagship console once again has a chicken and egg problem. With PS3 2.4x firmware and the patched Super Stardust HD giving folks the chance to fall prey to the addiction of racking up trophies for their buddies to see and compare, we want more games to earn trophies in. The holy grail is, of course, to get credit for games we've played already instead of having to replay everything again.