Another pre-launch battle is about to be waged between Sony and Nintendo towards the end of this month. The battlefield - Germany's Leipzig Games Convention 2006, taking place between August 23-27. Nintendo has already promised to make a big announcement at the show (hopefully relating to the Wii launch date), but the question is: will the two next-gen consoles be playable at GC 2006?

According to a couple of stories from DarkZero, not... entirely. Even though both companies will have their own booth at the show, it appears that none of Sony's PS3 launch titles will be playable at GC, and only select members of the press and retail will be allowed to get a hold of Nintendo's Wii.

DarkZero reports that Sony will be holding off all PlayStation 3 games until the Tokyo Game Show (which takes place later this year), and that their booth from the Leipzig GC will remain void of all PS3 demo units. However, that doesn't mean that third-party publishers will aslo follow in their footsteps. One way or the other, some PS3 games - such as Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed - are expected to be playable in Leipzig, although public access to such demos is still an uncertainty.

The only thing coming from Sony at GC 2006 are "two PS3 related announcements". Your guess here is as good as ours...

As for Nintendo's playful console, the general public will once again be left out. As it turns out, only select members of the press and retail will be able to grab the Wiimote and have their way with it. I just hope that Nintendo's "big announcement" will make it all worthwhile.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)