But though this show was a little more compact than usual, there was much that boded well for the industry's creative future, if not its financial one. The winner of the console wars was probably Sega. Blissfully released from throwing money down the drain by making hardware, they can now make superb software for everyone else. Sega's stand featured lots of the lunatic brilliance of Super Monkey Ball, and quirky stuff such as The Pinball of the Dead on Game Boy Advance.
There was also the superb Jet Set Radio Future appearing on Xbox. It has a moody, high-contrast colour palette, and the signature cel-shading graphical style is now more liberally applied than in the first game, so the city environments have taken on a heavier shroud of character.
And JSRF will only be on Xbox, which is a coup for Microsoft. Many people have been writing off Microsoft's chances in Japan, particularly as it will not be able to launch its new console until after the critical Christmas period. But Microsoft has been hard at work wooing developers, and the efforts seemed to be paying off at its enormous stand.
Konami's Airforce Delta 2 (like JSRF, another sequel to a game that first appeared on the defunct Dreamcast), was looking splendid. It might be an arcadey, fire-and-forget sort of combat flight game, but it is as smooth as silk, with pleasingly over-the-top explosions. Once again the colour palette is darkly stylised, with nocturnal skies streaked in rich blacks and greens. Dead or Alive 3 (Tecmo) was also given lots of space, and it does look nice. One wonders, however, how long it will be before the "wow" effect of multiple textured snowflakes or idly falling autumn leaves, begins to pall. Underneath, it is just another beat-'em-up.
Microsoft has also been careful to cover the bases in the idiosyncratic Japanese market, so much emphasis was placed on Gun Valkyrie 3 (pointy mech action with very impressive rock detail), a horse-racing simulation (Jockey's Road), and a bizarre fashion-world game, in which you choose your model's outfits and then watch her sashay down the catwalk in obeisance to your notion of style.
There was a squad-based domestic rodent game, too (slogan: "Have a mice day!"), with a team of lovably furry mice scampering around a large house solving puzzles. Sadly, the actual gameplay turned out to be so on rails that it might as well have been a train simulator.
Over in the next hall, Sony had a real one, Train Simulator Real, to be precise. Not many western PlayStation 2 owners will want to drive the Tokyo subway, but it was nice to know it was there.
Sony was welcoming gamers into its arena with TV screens displaying the subtle message "You need new game". Doubtless, PlayStation 2 owners who have sat through the long drought of half-decent software might curse their agreement. Still, no point being bitter.
Finally, there are more than three prime videogames on course to grace the black monster, and developers seem finally able to get to grips with its processor architecture in their second-generation products.
Adventure/RPG Ico, in particular, glories in an atmospheric, slightly bleached-out lighting, and beautiful grass and stone textures. There is something haunting about the relationship between the player's character and the translucent, ghostly princess he must save: she won't move around on her own and has to be led through the gameworld by the hand.
Elsewhere, PS2 was being driven in predictable directions - eye-searing mech candy with Armored Core 3, pretty beat-'em-up mayhem with Virtual Fighter 4, tactical espionage action with new video footage from Metal Gear Solid 2 (but, criminally, no new playable areas).
But there were some offbeat experiments, too. BuileBaku, a puzzle game that involved demolishing real-world buildings might not see the light of day after the American terrorist attacks (its release has been indefinitely postponed), but it looked like an interesting idea. So, for a different reason, did Capcom's tantalising footage of Auto Modellista, a cel-shaded but not cartoony PS2 racing game. With its hardcore particle effects for sparks and exhaust fumes, its baffling injunctions to "run over the side of flags", and its heavy-rock soundtrack, it is a promising fusion of formal realism with imaginative visual style.
One theme that particularly caught the eye was the use of peripheral sensory devices. Sony displayed a marvellously odd game called Live Box, which is computerised B-movie amateur dramatics for all the family. Using headset microphones, you (and a friend, if possible) must provide the soundtrack to rendered cartoony scenes played out on the TV screen. Do well at the blood-curdling screams, whimpers and evil roars and the game will rate your thespian performance highly.
Over at Konami's stand, meanwhile, a new twist was added to the rhythm-action genre with Martial Beat, a martial-arts aerobic-workout game. With sensors on your wrists and ankles, you follow the kicking and punching routines shouted at you by the martial-arts gurus. If you get it right, you are rewarded with sounds of exploding stuff and a bright flash of red light at the end of your teacher's hand. Just like being in a beat-'em-up game. Except they do not usually display graphically which muscles you have worked and how many calories you have burned. Your correspondent did not find the martial art of which he is a student supported by the preview version, but lives in hope.
· Steven Poole travelled to Tokyo as a guest of Sony Computer Entertainment
