E3 2008 - Sony

Sony's turn now. Wow, back to back (though I guess there's an hour break in there for lunch and travel). I said I'd love to be there, but...yeah I don't know if I'd like that very much. :) Still, would be cool to get paid for something like this some day. Just doing this for fun right now. Cross posting to a couple of forums and got some appreciative responses, which is cool. Supposed to be finishing up stuff for tonight's D&D game, but it will probably start late, or be canceled. My fiancee just got back from vacation and there was a huge pile of work waiting for him. It's like he's the only person who does any work around there sometimes. So he may be working late tonight.

Microsoft had some big surprises, Nintendo played it safe. Wonder what Sony's going to do.
I should note that while Nintendo didn't have any huge fan-boy announcements, they did mention that their Mario and Zelda teams are "hard at work" on something. GTA on DS is still kind of surprising considering the image Nintendo is known for, but this just means they're trying to branch out, which is a good thing. Sony, I can only assume, will have some God of War news. Don't know what else. I don't pay much attention to Sony these days since I don't have a PS3 (and with FFXIII going to the 360, now have absolutely no reason at all to ever buy one) or a PSP. I've laughed and mocked my fair share at Sony since the PS3 launched. Well, actually since the PSP. And I have no real interest in Blu-ray. We have a HD TV but...we're pretty happy with the quality that just the TV can bring via the correct cables and a regular DVD player.

Seeing a lot of criticism for the Nintendo conference. While it's true they didn't have much for their hard core players, it wasn't a bad event. Like I said, it was fun and entertaining, and you could tell that they really loved the products they were bringing out for you. That's probably the one thing you can always say about Nintendo.

OK it's starting now. 1:35 pm Central time.
Lots of screens showing various clips - there's Bioshock, some war games, football games (who cares), golf, Star Wars, singing, PSP titltes, Playstation Network. Quite a presentation. Ghostbusters there toward the end.

Jack...Tretton? He's the Pres in the US. Uh, OK, he's talking about actors doing things on the stage they're on now. Making some cheesy jokes. They're at the Shrine Auditorium by the way. He mentioned Kratos. Now he's giving everyone a history lesson on Sony's consoles. Heh, he's talking about console life spans now, and how they committed to a 10 year life span for the PSOne. Now he's explaining that their big titles were a year or two after the launch (sounds familiar). He's saying the PS3 will be another "10 year vision." Yeah, I'd like to see that actually happen. MS is already talking about their next Xbox for goodness sakes. But they are still making PS2 games; the new Ghostbusters game will get a PS2 release. Now he's talking about the PS3 as a media center. Blu-ray pimping now. What? He just said "Games like MGS4 are not only exclusive to the PS3 but [get this] only possible on the PS3." Well, that's rather pretentious. You can do that stuff on the 360 too, it just takes more discs. :)

PS3 has more exclusives than any other platform. Really? Guess you tend to forget that when many of them were horrible. Sorry, sorry, I'll try to keep my biased comments to a minimum...but I make no promises. ^_^

They have 3 successful products on the market now? Are they still counting the PS2? PS3 news now. Resistance 2. The camera just pulled back from the stage; that is SOME set up they've got in there. At least 8 screens up there. Wow that is a big friggin monster. Ouch. Ugly too. Oh cool, they rocket launched his mouth, and it reacted accordingly. Very nice. Seriously this thing is as big as a building (like sky scraper big). Looks pretty sweet. Talking up the plot now. Has 8 player online co-op and 60 player competitive mode (geez, did I hear that right? SIXTY?). Before we were seeing game play (probably a boss fight), now it's a trailer. All in-game footage, they make sure to point out. The game looks pretty large scale. And it is coming out....they didn't say.

Jack is talking about user generated content now. Little Big Planet. They've been talking about this long enough that I'm sure people know all about it by now. He's talking about how you can play it with your children. He's showing a level they created. Character customization. Cute stuff. HAHA. Kotaku was right, it IS a graph level. Seriously they're using the little character to run around some profit bar graphs. They're using the game to talk about their finances, geez.... He keeps running through the level past more facts and charts. Now they're using it to advertise their greatest hits titles (Rainbow Six, Assassin's Creed, Oblivion, etc). He's riding along a little track past the game cases ($30 greatest hits). Seriously this is absurd. Inventive I guess, I'll give them that. Made their charts and graphs mildly entertaining. Coming out sometime this fall.

PS2 now. Really? Sorry, I'm totally laughing over here. 130 titles coming to the PS2. Wow. Football, golf, Force Unleashed, Warriors Orochi 2, Singstar, Yakuza 2, more football, Mercenaries 2. $129 price for PS2. He's talking about Singstar and the eye toy, and now something called Buzz, which he says is now coming to the PS3 and PSP. PS2 limited edition Lego Batman comes with a Justice League DVD, PS2 bundle package for $149.

Playstation Network news. Gah, they're mowing the lawn outside. All PS users will have a single sign on through the PC, PS3, etc. Sort of like Xbox Live I guess. Games, movies, TV, photos.... He's talking about their recent new interface now. And all the DLC they have. "Now what's an E3 conference without a few surprises" Jack says. Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty. It's shorter than normal. I guess it's going to be a PSN game. $14.99, this summer. "We're not interested in filling up the shelves with titles no one wants to play just so we can say we have the most." I'll refrain from the snarky comments as they're launching another video clip...video.
Ratchet and Clank they just showed, Crash Commando, Fat Princess, Pixel Junk, Pain Amusement Park, Flower, Siren Blood Curse, Ragdoll Kung fu. Lots of artsy looking games. He mentioned something about playing great games for the cost of a movie ticket.

Gran Turismo TV. Motor sport programming in game through PSN. I guess it's sort of like a Pay Per View thing. Not really sure. It's for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Available August 1st.

Talking about community experiences now. Guess he's going to get into the trophy system now. Which is just achievements like the 360 has.
Playstation Home now. Sorry, but I don't really know much about this. I guess it's like Second Life for the PS3? That's what the video looks like. And you can use Uncharted Drake's Fortune and Resistance Fall of Man with it. And Warhawk. They really are taking forever with this thing, aren't they.

PSN downloading movies and TV shows (catching up with Live again). Like to see how they plan to trump the Netflix deal Microsoft made. Sony Pictures (duh), Fox, MGM, Lionsgate, Warner, Disney, Turner, Paramount and...did he say FUNimation? Talking about prices now. Sorry, I missed exactly what he was saying it was for. I think they're for video rental and purchases. And you can transfer it to your PSP. They're doing a visual walk through now, showcasing the new video tab. This guy here is the PSN operations director. Looks like a 2.99 rental price. You can watch previews of the film you're thinking of renting. Buy prices are around 15 bucks. There are also HD rentals, which I think are a dollar or two more than regular rentals. They didn't mention how long you can rent the movies for. This is all supposed to be available tonight.

PSP time. He's talking up the PSP as a media center as well, and about how you can hook it up wirelessly with the PS3 (I believe). Now he's talking about spiked sales from their limited edition PSP packages (like the God of War pack). Ratchet and Clank Size Matters is the next package, which comes with a silver PSP and the new National Treasure. $199. New game.... Resistance Retribution. Similar to what they showed for the PS3 game, though...they are different games. Spring 2009.
Another highlight reel. Force Unleashed again, Madden, Loco Roco 2, NBA game, Super Stardust Portable, Lego Batman, Patapon 2, Buzz Master Quiz, Valkyria Chronicles.
Now Jack is talking about the PSP in the living room, not just as an outside portable.

Back to the PS3. Big title announcement maybe? They haven't said anything more about God of War yet. Did he say Google? Oh, he's talking about loading PS3 game videos onto Youtube. Life With Playstation. DC Universe Online. Everquest. Spitting out a bunch of titles here. Wait, Everquest? Huh. And here's Jim Lee from DC. Doing...push ups. Oh, that's a joke Jack made like an hour ago. Sony is really raining down the titles today. Neither of the other in the Big 3 threw out this much. He's talking about playing a Paladin in some game, missed what it was (EQ I guess). Apparently he likes MMOs. Talking about making yourself a place in the DCU by fighting alongside Batman or freeing prisoners from Arkham Prison (sp?). Video time. It's going to be on the PC too. So OK, the DC characters will all be in there, and you play along side them in some fashion with your character. They didn't show any player created characters though, just DC characters. Looks good, though.

Jack is back now. Talking about the 80 gig PS3. That's huge. $399. This season. Talking about the superiority of the PS3 again. He should just say "We're better than you, MS," because that's what he means. A video is playing of some developers talking about making games on the PS3. Touting the storage capability with Blu-ray. Not a big deal to me; multiple discs doesn't bother me at all. Long term development, talking about...sports games. That's about it really.

Time for yet another video. Little Big Planet, Motor Storm Pacific Rift, MGS4, Quantum of Solace, Socom Confrontation, Ghostbusters, Soul Calibur IV, Resistance 2, The Agency, Naruto Storm, Mirror's Edge, Resident Evil, Singstar, Guitar Hero World Tour, NBA 09, Buzz, Killzone 2, saw some Fallout 3 and Eternal Sonata in there. Most of that they've already talked about or shown. And most of that was not exclusive, though he keeps talking about how they have all these exclusives.

And now God of War 3. Trailer. Looks great. Kratos is continuing his fight against the gods (I think). Pretty short trailer.
Infamous. Some explosion killed a bunch of people. But this one dude got some sort of special powers. Looks interesting. Spring 2009. Also pretty short trailer.
One final title. Sounds like an online game. Andy Bodewin (that's so not how it's spelled) from Zipper Interactive is onstage. Something called MAG. 256 player battles (WOW) with 8 player squads. Massive Action Game. Squad Based, Character Growth, Ongoing Campaigns. Trailer looks good. Pretty expansive (it has to be to support that many players on a map). Massive is certainly an appropriate term.

Wrapping things up. And that's it. Well, that was quite the line up. No big bombshells though, really. Some good looking stuff. Really brief looks at even the big titles though.

Those are the Big 3. G4 covered the smaller ones too, but didn't air them on TV (boo). There's more throughout the week though. I'm compiling a list of trailers from the big games that are being shown this week, so expect that later on. Now, I have a game to finish preparing!