E3 2009 - Sony

Sony now. I have to be honest here and say I don’t give a crap what Sony’s showing. I don’t have a PS3 or a PSP, and have no near or future intentions of getting either. The only thing I have an interest in is Team ICO’s next title, which might be enough to make me want to get a PS3, but it won’t be out for a while anyway. I don’t even care about God of War 3; I enjoyed the first 2, but I’m kind of tired of it personally.

And here it goes. Montage video to start with. Overlord, God of War, Little Big Planet, Ratchet and Clank, Singstar, FFXIII, Batman, Brutal Legend, Ghost Busters, Saw.

Please welcome Jack Tretton, CEO. “Wow. Thank God you guys showed up.” He’s joking about the leaks. Saying they won’t be outdone by anybody with press leaks. 364 games coming out on PS platforms this year. That is a BIG screen. Apparently it’s not worth watching anything unless it’s shown that big. He’s going over figures and history. 30% of total sales in 2008 were from Sony. Modern Warfare 2, FFXIII, Ratchet and Clank, Batman Arkham, Heavy Rain, Rock Band Beatles. But at least 3 of those will also be on the 360 Jack.

Talking about the PS2 now and how it’s still kicking ass 9 years later. Mine is still kicking, surprisingly. PS2 will get 100 new titles this year. “Today’s PS2 owners are ultimately tomorrow’s PS3 owners.” More facts and figures. More figures regarding PSN.

What consumers really care about – great games. Haha he says some of you have bags under yours eyes because you’re playing Infamous. It’s one of the more than 35 exclusive PS3 titles for this year.

Naughty Dog and Uncharted Drake’s Fortune. Co-Pres of ND is coming out for Among Thieves. Multi-player beta starts tonight. Demo – nice graphics. He’s scaling a building. Big sweeping view of the gorgeous environment. Showing off different player abilities. He’s shimmying across a wooden beam and a helicopter shows up and starts shooting at them. Big shoot out, and an explosion. It’s a really good looking game, fast paced, pretty intense.

Jack is back. Says “Only on Playstation” means not only exclusive, but because it’s only possible to make on Playstation. He’s talking about MAG now. They talked about this last year. It’s a huge massively multiplayer FPS game. 256 players fight each other on a single map. They’re pulling a bunch of people to show off a full 256 person battle live. Ground vehicles, air strikes, ground assaults. Squads are assigned objectives. A LOT of stuff is going on. It looks like there’s a bit of tactical strategy type stuff going on as well. It’s great that you can play with so many people, this massive battle, but the game itself (graphics, gameplay, etc) isn’t blowing me away or anything (it’s not bad, it’s just not OMG amazing).

Jack is back to talk about the PSP. It’s for gamers looking for a richer, deeper portable experience he says (a shot at Nintendo). Dissidia Final Fantasy on Aug 25, Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines in November, and a Rock Band title. Tween girls again. Hannah Montana with a Lilac PSP. People cheered, haha.

Kaz Hirai, CEO Sony computer entertainment. He’s talking about making the PSP better. I’m assuming this a lead up to the PSP GO, which was leaked last week. Wow it’s tiny; he pulled it out of his pocket. LOL “We call it the worst kept secret of E3.” It will not replace the PSP 3000 or the UMD. So they will still support the UMD format. PSP Go, by the way, is digital only. 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the original PSP. 16 gigs of internal flash memory (pretty good). The controls slide out, has Bluetooth tech and an M2 memory port. Media Go, used to access the Playstation Store. Sense Me – analyzes your music library to create a play list based on the mood you select. That’s neat. PSP toolkit price is being lowered by 80% to help developers. All future titles will be released on UMD and digital. So you can have either and still play all games. Available for $249 on October 1st.

He’s talking about a video delivery service. Now you can use it with the PSP. More content being added to PS store. He’s naming off a bunch of networks that will add content (Starz, G4, Showtime, Manga, E).

Kazunouri Yamauchi for Polyphony Digital. Introducing Gran Turismo for PSP. Full scale Gran Turismo (60 frames per second). 800 cars, 35 tracks with 60 layouts. Everyone’s got a new racing game this year I guess. Single player mode and mission challenge mode. Emphasizing that this is a full game, not shrunken down. 4-player racing. Trading and sharing of cars with other players. Video of the game in action. Great graphics. October 1.

Kaz again. Quality and authenticity. It’s a Metal Gear announcement. So here’s Hideo Kojima. Poor guy; will they ever let him make anything else? Does he want to? Oh, his translator is kind of cute. Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker for PSP. 10 years after MGS3 in the 1970s. Kojima is writing and producing and the MGS4 team is working on it. “It’s not a spin off or a side story.” Trailer. Takes place in Latin America (Costa Rica specifically). Has all the elements of a MGS game. “The legendary ‘missing link’ in the Metal Gear Saga,” the trailer says. “Monstrous foes incapable of feeling pain.” Uh, there are 4 Snakes here (clones?). LOL @ cardboard box; two Snakes hide under it and then run off.

Jack is back again. Resident Evil again, for the PSP. Little Big Planet, Socom, Monster Hunter, Motorstorm, Hannah Montana and Harry Potter, all on the PSP. Video of PSP titles. LBP, Ratchet and Clank, FF Dissidia, MGS, Soul Calibur, Tiger Woods, Persona (!!!!), Warriors Orochi, Tennis, Fat Princess, Rock Band, Petz.

Jack is back to talk about the PSN. Facts and figures. 51 PS1 classics are being added, starting today with FFVII. Talking about Home now. Talking about the poor saps who bought millions of virtual items.

PS3 montage now. Uncharted, Infamous, Madden, FF XIII, Batman AA, Brutal Legend, Ghostbusters, White Knight, Ninja Gaiden, Buzz, Ice Age, Tekken, Tiger Woods, something with a hamster, Overlord, Fat Princess, Singstar, DCU Online, LBP, Saboteur, Bioshock 2, Ratchet and Clank, God of War 3.

Jack is back, talking about Rockstar. Agent, PS3 exclusive. It’s an espionage game, set in the 70s.

Assassin’s Creed 2. Sebastian and Patrice from Ubi to show the game. Demo! Ubi showed a glorious cinematic, this is gameplay. Says it picks up right where the first left off. Beautiful. This guy isn’t an assassin at first, but becomes one, working with people like Leonardo Da Vinci; Ezio is using the flying machine to sail across Venice. Wow look at him go. Action slips right into a scene perfectly. Ooooo I can’t WAIT for this. Ezio has new techniques, like jumping from a tower and stabbing a guy, and double stabbing two guys next to each other. Now he stabs a guy while hiding in the hay. 30 different weapons in the game, 6 additional if you played Bloodlines on the PSP and connect it to the PS3. Wooooow. He has smoke bombs now. And he can SWIM. Oh wowowowowow. AC2, this holiday (Bloodlines too). Too bad I’ll be getting it on the 360, Sony. But thanks for getting me excited.

Jack is back to introduce Square-Enix. Here’s a video for FFXIII. Beautiful. Cinematics, in game scenes and gameplay, all look amazing. Boy Sony it trumping MS with all the extra footage they’re showing. Now he’s showing FF….WHAT? 14?????
Is he serious? Oh…no he’s not. That is not a nice joke. It looks really good. It’s NOT a joke. FFXIV Online. 2010, only on the PS3. I haven’t heard of this before. “So there’s one that didn’t leak out, huh?” I didn’t even know they were working on that. It’s not clear what it is; another MMO? Have to look it up later. It's just a cinematic, but it seems to be a new MMO. Not sure why they're making another one and not just adding to the one they already have. And I wish they'd stop putting them in the numerical series; they should be separate, like the Crystal Chronicles and Tactics games.

Jack is talking about motion control now. It’s a new controller. He’s assuring everyone it’s just a prototype (it’s kind of tacky). Live tech demo. 1:1 tracking. It’s basically a Wii mote for the PS3. It looks like it’s using the camera to track motion. The eye cam or whatever it’s called. So it tracks your movement as well as the object you’re holding in your hand. VERY early stage of development. Now he’s using it as a pencil to write on a piece of paper within the game. They’re just showing off various uses of the tool. As weapons, paintbrushes, with strategy games, and character control (he’s using two controllers, one as a sword one as a shield). It’s very sensitive and precise. Talking about this coming out by spring 2010. Would have been more impressive if MS and Nintendo hadn’t already shown of theirs (and theirs was in more advanced stages as well).

Jack is back to talk about LBP. And introduces Mod Nation Racers. “Play, create, share.” It’s a cutesy car racing game. You can create racers and race tracks. Well he just drove through a tree trunk, so it doesn’t seem super realistic. Will appeal to people who enjoy stuff like LBP more than people who like racing games. Good track creation tools, quick and simple, you can even change the weather. You can upload your tracks online.

Jack is back for a sneak peak at another title from TEAM ICO! Finally (though this was leaked, too). The Last Guardian. In Ico you climbed around a bunch of ruins with a girl. In Shadow of the Colossus you took down gigantic bosses. A big monster is chasing a kid through a hall in some ruins, and the kid drops off the ledge. The monster picks him up; it’s his friend. The boy climbs up onto its head and looks out over a ruined landscape. Absolutely beautiful. It’s this HUGE pet dog/bird looking thing (like a giant griffon almost), and it’s carrying him around everywhere, helping him up on ledges, swimming with him under water. Now THAT is worth buying a PS3 for.

Gran Turismo 5 teaser. Cars racing. Whatever. Still giddy over Last Guardian.

Here’s another franchise. This is likely GOW3. Yup. Design director is going to do a live demo. Kratos takes down some nasties in classic Kratos style. I assume if you liked the others you’ll like this one as it’s more of he same. Kratos is using harpies to fly across large gaps. A huge Titan approaches in the distance. Kratos glides across a smaller gap with some dark wings that come out of his back, then kills some stuff. And some more stuff. The Titan is still fighting its own battle in the background. Button combos for special attacks are back. I guess this is Apollo flying around on a flaming chariot, fighting the Titan. A big nasty chimera sneaks up on Kratos, and Kratos precedes to take him out. LOTS of blood. He rips the things horns off and stabs it in the head with them. March 2010.

Good spot to end things. Jack is back. Again with the “not just exclusive to the PS3 but only possible on the PS3.” “Other companies imagine the future of gaming, we show you the future of gaming.” Sony is always so snarky. And he wraps it up.


Come back later this week for a posting of various trailers and games that weren't announced during the big conferences.