Nintendo signs up for Game Stars Live

Burgeoning consumer games expo Game Stars Live has signed up its first home platform holder, with Nintendo set to have a "major presence" at the five-day event which is to take place at London's ExCeL at the start of September.

Nintendo joins a growing list of exhibitors at the show which includes mobile platform holder Nokia and key publishers Electronic Arts, Activision, Atari, Eidos and Vivendi Universal.

However, as yet there's no word as to the plans of Sony and Microsoft - and while Game Stars Live's exhibitor line-up so far is impressive, there's a strong feeling that the "make or break" for the event will be which way Sony decides to jump.

For the past two years, the PlayStation platform holder has had its own event at Earls Court, the PlayStation Experience, which has run in the venue at the same time as the ECTS trade show. Whether the giant company - which has since successfully exported the PlayStation Experience format to the rest of Europe - will be prepared to subsume its own brand into the Game Stars Live event will be interesting to see.

Although Nintendo has committed to the Game Stars Live consumer event, the release announcing its intentions makes no mention of any support for the European Games Network trade event, which will be running in an adjacent hall of the ExCeL facility.

"Game Stars Live presents a major opportunity to get the greatest games in the world in front of games in the run up to the busiest sales period of the year," according to Nintendo UK general manager David Yarnton. Which games exactly the Japanese giant will be able to showcase should become clear after this week - when a whole raft of new titles for the Cube, GBA and DS are expected to be launched in Los Angeles.