Sony's E3 kicked off its E3 press conference with an apology about the recent PSN outage. SCEA President Jack Tretton presented a humbled figure as he gave a carefully worded apology about the outage and "taking gamers away from doing what you love to do".

"You [consumers] are the lifeblood of the company," said Tretton. "Without you, there is no PlayStation and I want to apologize both personally and on behalf of the company for any anxiety we have caused you."

After the apology the new conference turned to more positive news for fans. Sony showed off some of its newest games which include Little Big Planet, Streetfighter X Tekken and a new edition of Uncharted 3: Drake's Fortune. After the games were shown it was time for Sony to push its 3D wares. Sony announced a new 3DTV bundle for PS3 players which will include a 24" 3DTV with splitscreen capability and two pairs of active 3D glasses as well as a copy Resistance 3. The bundle will cost $499 with additional pairs of glasses selling for $69.99.

The real news of course is the PSP's successor. Sony had already revealed the specs for the Next Generation Portable which will feature a multi-touch screen, a CPU and GPU that is capable of PS3 graphics and a multi-touch pad on the rear. The NGP will also have Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity as well as motion control and two control sticks. The PS Suite will give the NGP access to the PlayStation store. Sony officials have already touted the NGP as the device that will give Sony the lead over the market for the next five years. The E3 press conference revealed that the NGP which will be officially known as the Vita will ship in stores before Christmas this year and at the low price of $249.95 in the U.S. with a 3G version priced at $50 more. A spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment Australia said the local price will be more in line with the European price of 299 euros ($406.35.

The most interesting news about the Vita is its cloud based storage, cross platform compatibility and content sharing. A demo of new game called Ruin highlighted these capabilities. A saved game on the Vita could be loaded to a cloud system and then loaded to a PS3. There are already 80 games in development for the Vita.