Sony and Nintendo, the video game giants, both announced new products and services at the world's largest games conference yesterday - though the new releases were not as dazzling as observers had hoped for.

Sony's biggest announcement was an upgrade to its PlayStation Network - the online portal for its consoles - which will allow owners to download TV shows and films and play them on their TVs. PlayStation owners will be able to rent TV shows for $1.99 and films from between $2.99 and $5.99. Film purchases will start at $9.99.

The announcement - which followed a similar move from Microsoft that will mean Xbox 360 owners can stream films to their TVs from Netflix, the DVD rental company - shows the extent to which Sony is trying to get its games division to work more closely with its content arm, which includes the film studio Sony Pictures.

It also indicates an attempt on the part of Howard Stringer, the company's chief executive, to begin incorporating software and services into its sales of devices - a model typified by Apple, which in January announced a new film rental service allowing customers to download movies from the iTunes website and play them on their iPods.

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Sony said that some of the programming - which will be drawn from major studios including Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros and Sony Pictures - would be in high definition, allowing PS3 owners to tap into the Blu-ray capability of their devices. Owners of PlayStation Portables (PSPs) would be able to watch the films on the go, it said.

Sony also gave a demonstration of Resistance 2, a first-person shooter in which the player confronts a 300-foot leviathan terrorising an urban landscape, and of DC Universe Online, a superhero-themed multi-player game.

Nintendo used its presentation at the E3 games conference in Los Angeles to detail some new additions to its Wii console, which has been credited with introducing computer games to a wider audience, including older people and women. A new accessory - the Wii Motion Plus - that plugs into the console's trademark "wand" will allow the device to become much more sensitive to twists of the wrist.

Nintendo executives demonstrated the device on several new games - one in which players compete to whittle away a pencil much like a woodchopper would fell a log at a contest, another in which the player throws a Frisbee-like disc for a dog to catch, and a third jetski-type game in which the controller is used like the handles of a motorbike.

The Japanese company also unveiled the Wii Speak - a microphone that plugs into the Wii, and a new game called Wii Music, which lets players imitate the playing of about 50 instruments. In perhaps its most susprising announcement, Nintendo said that the Grand Theft Auto creator, Rockstar, was developing a version of the game for the handheld Nintendo DS.

Analysts were underwhelmed by the presentations, however, saying they hoped third-party games publishers would generate more excitement with their announcements later today and on Thursday.

“Both Nintendo and Sony were somewhat playing it safe,” Ben Schachter, an analyst with UBS Securities, was quoted as saying. "There hasn’t been a real ‘Wow’ moment yet. They seem to be covering their bases, showing a little bit of something for everyone, but there hasn’t been anything totally spectacular yet."

Microsoft, which makes the Xbox 360 console and Electronic Arts, the publishing giant, made their announcements on Monday.

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