GC '09: Sony press conference liveblog

At 1830 Deutschenzeit (that may not be a real German word), Sony will take to the stage in Cologne's Koelnmesse and wow the assembled crowd with news about Sony's products and services.

There's bound to be some stuff in there about the PS3 Slim, the rumoured 80GB price cuts, and of course the much vaunted Motion Controller.

But we'll be ignoring those bits. Of interest to us is news pertaining to the PSP and PSPgo. Specifically, we'll be looking out for news about the rumoured 8GB PSPgo and the story we broke last week concerning the PSPgo's iPhone-cheap price points.

We're not actually liveblogging the event in the truest sense of the word. Although Pocket Gamer has two operatives currently stalking the Koelnmesse in search of scoops and discarded change, we prefer to aggregate everybody else's liveblogs and feed you their collected views.

The sites we'll be following are Eurogamer, IGN, Joystiq, Kotaku, and VG247. Check back here at 1730 Britaintime to follow the event as it unfolds.

17.33 - Various bloggers are making their way into the event, taking their seats, firing out the first posts, and generally soaking up the excitement. Chris, I think, is lost. Fraser is on a train. My washing machine is beeping.

17.43 - They're late, and I gather it's hot in Germany today. A riot can only be moments away.

17.47 - Brian Crecente's laptop is low on battery. Ellie Gibson covets her neighbour's tan. And - BOOM - it begins. 17.53 - Andrew House takes to the stage, talking about how Sony loves to change. Boundaries shifted forward by PSP and PS3, future bright. Quite upbeat, really. 17.55 - House takes a moment to demonstrate why PlayStation is already brilliant. Why change, then? 17.56 - PSP will go from strength to strength. Already at 52.9m units sold. But Sony needs to change in line with the networked world. PSN has 11 million registrants, generating $280m. Apple is no doubt quaking. 18.00 - Now he's talking about Home. I don't have a PS3, so I've never been there. I was much amused by Justin McElroy's account of Quincying, though. Look it up. 18.02 - PSN's going to have a link to the BBC iPlayer, along with other such websites in other countries. Quite good. You'll also be able to buy vouchers, a la Microsoft points. 20 Euros and 50 Euros. 18.06 - Something called VidZone is coming by the end of the year. It'll let you download films to your PSP and PS3, buying or renting. Lots of studios are signed up. Sounds okay. 18.09 - Ah, a digital reader. Ira Rubenstein from Marvel is on stage, dressed like Wolverine. The reader will be available from December, and will cover lots of different media - initially comics. 18.12 - Sorry - graphic novels. Marvel thinks this might be a more significant distribution platform than paper and staples. 18.14 - The reader will have autoflow. What's autoflow? It's a thing that makes reading easy. 18.15 - This is more like it - LocoRoco Midnight Carnival and Eye of Judgement to be playable on the show floor. There you go, Fraser. Fieldrunners also shown. There's going to be 15 games available when PSPgo launches at the beginning of October, 50 in 2009. 18.18 - Alien Havoc, Puzzle Scrape, Tetris. I've just invented a word: ungasm. PSP 3000 will be in several new colours - green, purple and pink. Multiple ungasms. 18.21 - Gran Turismo will be free to European and PAL PSP owners who register between the 1st and 10 October. Pretty good, actually. Joao will be pleased. 18.23 - They're talking about PS3 stuff now, so I'll take a minute to catch up. There's going to be something called 'Minis' for PSPgo owners - a section on PSN. Snackable, bite-sized games to address the shift in tastes. That is, to follow Apple's lead. EA is a big backer. The games have a 100MB limit. 18.30 - No Motion Controller demo today. Just a video, and an assurance that it doesn't have you... enough of that. Here's Kaz. 18.34 - It's another of Sony's well kept secrets. The PS3 Slim is indeed coming, and soon. You'll be able to get one early this September. If you have the money. And can get into town. 18.40 -120GB drive, 33 per cent smaller, 36 per cent lighter, and all for the bargain price of $299/Euro 299. I'm not sure what that means for Sterling. If it's £299, I'm leaving the country. Standard PS3s will also be reduced to that price.

And that's it. All over, surprisingly early. Nothing about the 8GB PSPgo. Shame.

Thanks to Joystiq, Kotaku, Eurogamer, VG247, and IGN.