The fun and games could not wait for E3 to start this year, with Sony blundering at the weekend with a leak of its big announcement, while a hot new game emerged through Twitter that will not even figure at the big LA trade show.
Sony gave the game away on its new PSP Go handheld console when someone made the mistake of releasing a video and interview ahead of time on the PlayStation 3′s magazine programme – Qore.
We now know Sony will show on Tuesday this new version of the PlayStation Portable, which will do away with the UMD drive and its optical discs and rely on 16 gigabytes of Flash memory to store games and movies instead.
It is 43 per cent lighter than the existing PSP and will sell alongside it when it is released in the autumn. The Go appears to be a response to the success of Apple’s slender iPod touch as a gaming platform. With the same amount of Flash memory as the $299 version of the touch, Sony may pitch the Go at the same price, just as it did with its new Walkman recently.
The Qore video also made a passing reference to Gran Turismo 5, giving away another closely guarded secret that the eagerly awaited racing game will be shown at E3.
Talking of secrets, I’ve spent the weekend working for MI6, scouting out safe houses, building a spy ring and plotting assassinations.
Spymaster is the first game to leverage Twitter successfully as part of the wave of social gaming that has been sweeping the web.
It is a strategy game that allows you to recruit your Twitter followers to boost your spymaster credentials and it can automatically tweet your successes and failures in the game.
Twitter streams have therefore been littered with messages over the past few days such as “I just collected a dead drop”, “Just secured a safe house in Tbilisi, Georgia,” and “I just wounded @revdancatt in an assassination attempt.”
The only problem is it makes spies seem so indiscreet. And to many non-playing users, Spymaster is becoming more like Spammaster.
