Alliwantforxmasisapsp.com appeared to have been designed by two mates and featured downloadable PSP cards and t-shirt transfers. There was even a Youtube video with one of the mates' cousins rapping about the console.

However all that disappeared when Sony fessed up that the site was a part of a marketing campaign designed to promote the PSP in the run-up to Christmas.

The site had been registered by marketing outfit Zipatoni which offers "integrated multimedia marketing initiatives", which is not something you get out of a backstreet in Soho although it is equally viral.

Zipatoni's site lists Sony as a client and used to have a picture, which has disappeared, of an employee who is the twin of the man posing in a home-made PSP t-shirt on alliwantforxmasisapsp.com.

Miffed, the visitors to alliwantforxmasisapsp.com started posting nasty messages in the bog at the site. In the end Sony realised that they had been rumbled and posted a note on the site saying that it had been just a little too clever. "From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP." the site says.

One of our readers has pointed out to us that Sony seems to do a lot of this sort of thing. The "semi-official" PS3 blog site www.threespeech.com which is supposed to be run by fans, is owned by Ramp Industry, which is another communications outfit.