So what the hell is Dress? Is Sony readying their own version of Sega's dress up and shopping game Love & Berry? Are budding Home citizens about to enjoy the labors of digital seamstresses? Is this Sony's answer to Project Runway? Whatever Sony's recently registered trademark for Dress will be, we're pretty sure it's going to be... interesting.

Most of the trademark's goods and services registrations seem totally inappropriate for Sony's gaming division. For example, Dress is registered against things like "X-RAY TUBES", "GYMNASTIC INSTRUCTION", and "ELECTRIC HAIR-CURLERS FOR HOUSEHOLD USE" which I doubt we'll see. But some of the registrations seem much more likely to apply to a PlayStation game or application.

Some of the more interesting, more telling services that Dress is registered against include:

PROVIDING EXHIBIT SPACE OF VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS IN THE INTERNET FOR COMPUTER GENERATED 3-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN OF CLOTHING

ON-LINE RETAIL STORE SERVICES FEATURING DOWNLOADABLE VIDEO GAME SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE FOR CREATING DRESS AND WEARS FOR VIRTUAL REALITY AVATARS, SOFTWARE USED FOR CREATING VIRTUAL REALITY AVATARS, AND SOFTWARE FOR COMPUTER GENERATED 3-DIMENSIONAL CLOTHING FOR AVATARS

ENTERTAINMENT IN THE NATURE OF FASHION SHOWS

A lot of this sounds very much in tune with Phil Harrison's Game 3.0 mantra, providing gamers with a suite of tools that would aid them in the design of online avatar threads. With that adorable heart-shaped button graphic, it would seem that Dress will come with a slightly more feminine bent.

Of course, Sony, like many companies, registers plenty of trademarks that never see the light of day. Beats. for instance was trademarked by the company in the first quarter of 2007, then rated by the ESRB, but not a peep has been heard about the game.

We'll be tapping the shoulders of our favorite Sony execs in Tokyo next week to bug them about it, hoping to learn more.

Alice, once-a-month Kotaku poster and Wonderland blog queen sat in on her talk, showing off her incredible transcribing skills. Knight talks about the fiscal importance of pursuing the other half.

It is business bad practice to overlook an audience this big and this compelling. Star Wars was the biggest movie of all time... until Titanic came along. The reason? Women saw Titanic in droves - and they saw it more than once. We need to be sure that we're making content that is appealing to women. EA is the most successful developer of games for women, but we have a long way to go.

She points to games like the upcoming Rock Band and Boogie, as well as Bizarre's Boom Boom Rocket as examples of the company reaching out to the still largely untapped market. Read on to see how the world's biggest publisher is going to get your girlfriend, wife and mom hooked on gaming. Michael McWhertor

Women In Games 2007: Opening keynote, Sharon Knight, EA [Wonderland]