ECTS: Dreamcast bundled with DVD to take on Playstation 2

ECTS, Europe's answer to E3, is currently creating a racket down at London's Olympia which will carry on until 4pm (BST) tomorrow.

The word from the show floor is that if you want a Playstation 2 then don't rely on an independent retailer to get it for you. With only 200,000 of the £299 machines available by Christmas, distributor Centresoft is currently planning who's going to get to sell them. The smaller players reckon they've been stitched up already.

Gem, Sega's distributor, is aiming to match the Playstation offer by bundling a proper DVD player with the Dreamcast and giving it a street price of £299. This will become available by the end of September. The DVD player is a multi-region Encore 450 (not to be confused with Creative Labs' Encore DVD players) which shouldn't be too bad a machine - it has a trade price of £120.

The review sites have been down at the show. Eurogamer checked out what Nintendo was up to. There was no GameCube but lots of GameBoy Colors. If that's your bag then read it here.

Hexus.net took a lot of pleasure out of the P4 1.4GHz crashing on boot up and took some pics of it. You can take a look at them here.

But the site with its eye on what is really important at the ECTS is Chick's Hardware. The companies exhibiting at the show have not really risen above the basic sales maxim that sex and flesh sell. So as usual they wheel out the babes and get the crowds. Get your eyeful here.