I'm just back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is the biggest trade show in the world. Over 140,000 people attended and there were over 100 football fields worth of plasma screens (some over 100 inches in size), Blu-Ray Disc/HD-DVD combo players, cell phones, portable entertainment devices, car electronics and sound systems (including Internet for your vehicle) and, of course, videogames. Videogames aren't the main draw at CES, not since the game industry headed out on its own over a decade ago to create E3, but companies like Sony, Microsoft, Sony Online Entertainment, Nyko and Logitech had videogames or videogame peripherals on display either on the show floor or in hotel suites spread throughout the city.

There's good news for Guitar Hero II fans on multiple fronts. Activision had a playable Guitar Hero II game for Xbox 360 at the massive Microsoft booth. Aside from better visuals, the game plays exactly like the best-selling PlayStation 2 game, which is good news. It should be out sometime soon this year. For those who've upgrade to a PlayStation 3 and are wondering how to play Guitar Hero II on it, Nyko has a new peripheral that will allow any PS2 game controller to plug into PS3. Nyko also has a new wireless guitar called the Frontman which blows away the competition. It allows you to stand pretty far away from the TV while you rock out and it can be used for the PS2 or for the PS2 with that adaptor. Nyko expects to bring out the guitar for other consoles as Activision rolls out the game to other platforms.

Fans of Sony's SingStar game, which has sold over 5 million copies in Europe over the years, will be getting more songs this year. SingStar Pop is coming out for PS2 in a few months. And this fall, SingStar goes to PS3. The cool thing about the PS3 version is that you can download songs from the Internet, as well as HD videos. Games like the PS2 SingStar and Konami's Karaoke Revolution franchise, which just shipped an American Idol edition, have been limited to 30 to 40 songs per disc. Now with PS3, Sony can offer unlimited songs for one game. Sony actually held a karaoke competition at its booth, in between Spider-Man 3 movie footage, and gave away a PS3 and three games to one very lucky (and pretty bad) singer. Sony had a bunch of PS3 games on display, including upcoming titles like Lair, Motorstorm, Formula One Champtionship Edition, and MLB 07: The Show.

Sony Online Entertainment had a suite at the MGM Grand, where it was showing a new collection of classic games for download via PS3's PlayStation Store. The Midway Games classics that are coming out soon include Rampart, Rampage World Tour, Champtionship Sprint, Joust, Gauntlet II, and Mortal Kombat II. Each game can be bought for an as-yet-undecided low price and downloaded to the PS3 hard drive. SOE also had its new PC titles on display, including Gods & Heroes and Vanguard. But in recent years, the company has expanded from massively multiplayer online games to PSP, PS2 and PS3 games (including Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom).