Sony's TGS 2012 Conference Highlights

It's that time of the year again folks - the Tokyo Game Show returns for another year of awesome looking Japanese games and ridiculous looking Japanese games. Sony have gotten in early this year with their press conference just wrapping up now one day before the convention takes place - and what did we learn?

On the PlayStation 3 hardware front, we learned that whispered rumours about a new slimline model of the PlayStation 3 coming before Christmas this year were correct, with Sony announcing the new line set to hit stores in Australia by the end of September. The new PS3s will be lighter and smaller by 25% compared to previous versions and will come in two flavours - a beefy 500GB version for a recommended retail price of $399.95 and something a little different - a 12GB flash memory version for $299.95. Will flash memory decrease loading times? I don't know - and considering the dozens of games I've bought from the PS Store I'm unlikely to find out.

PlayStation Plus is already a pretty big hit with PlayStation 3 users since Sony added bunches of free games to the bargain and Sony today announced when the service would be hitting the PlayStation Vita - in November. Plus on the Vita will be similar to its PS3 counterpart, with the same discounts, free games and cloud service - with 1GB save storage for the PS3 and 1GB save storage for the PS Vita. Happily Sony also announced it will be no extra cost to PS3 Plus subscribers and vice versa.

On the PlayStation Mobile front, Sony's PlayStation Store will be available in a variety of regions including Australia on the 3rd of October, allowing gamers with PS Vitas and PlayStation Certified Android phones and tablets to purchase games - with 30 new titles set to launch with the store.

Along with the PlayStation announcements there were several games discussed, like God Eater 2, a ridiculous looking Gundam game where you fight with toy models of Gundam, as opposed to actual Gundam and a new game called Toukiden from Omega Force - the developers behind the Warriors games. You read that correctly, they are making a game outside of the Warriors franchise! Mostly however, I want to know how the flash memory impacts loading times. Who wants to buy one next week and test it? Let me know in the comments below!