E3 2010: Sony

Here's Sony. Sorry for the lack of excitement here. I'm not a Sony fan this time around, and honestly there were too many long, boring, repetitive montages in there. They lost my interest several times. Still, I took decent notes, so here's Sony's conference:

Welcome to the Sony Press Conference. It’s 1:55 PM CT. So not even remotely interested. Disclaimer: I don’t own a PSP or a PS3. Really thought about skipping this one, but eh, might as well. Last Guardian, Persona, and Kingdom Hearts will wake me up.

Montage playing with lots of various game footage. And a little jibe at Kinect from Kevin Butler.

Here is Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony America. Making a joke about Kevin Butler co-hosting with him. Kevin Butler is the guy in all their commercials, by the way. Sony annoys me, but he’s hilarious and those commercials are great. Transition from more to a game company into an entertainment company Jack says. Something for everyone in you family; the only console he say that has that (WTF? Glad to see Sony’s arrogance hasn’t gone anywhere). He’s talking about the PS3 as an entertainment center with movies, music, BR, games, etc.

Pres and CEO of SCE, Kazuo Hirai. Talking about 3D. Weee. Well, it’s Sony; they’re pimping their new 3D TVs right now, so obviously the PS3 would go there too. Content defining 3D. Because I totally want to shell out for a freakin’ 3D television, too. No thanks. He’s calling out some 3D PSN titles, 20 titles by March 2011 will be in 3D.

Killzone 3 in 3D, here is Hermen from Gorilla Games (I think he said). Group up built for 3D play. The scene they’re showcasing takes place in the arctic. And everyone puts on the glasses, those black sunglass looking ones like you get in theaters. Unfortunately this effect does not carry over into the home broadcasts. Anyway, it’s Killzone. There’s shooting and stuff. And you’ve got some kind of jet pack…that shoots flames out in front of your face. That’s nice. February. Also compatible with PSMove.

Kaz is back. “The content drives the consumer interest.” He’s talking about content created for 3D and not just adapted. PS3 only platform with native 3D gaming. Motor Storm Apocalypse, Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 5, and one I missed (Sly?). Crysis 2, Mortal Kombat, Shaun White Skateboarding, Tron Evolution, NBA 2K11, all in 3D (and one I missed again…it’s too fast). MLB, Eyepet…games that use 3D and Move.

“It’s a future that Sony will lead” – the future of entertainment. Another 3D video. Fifa, golf, football…. Montage time I guess. Oh this was definitely created to show off the 3D. Eyepet (this thing is so ugly), Motor Storm, MLB The Show, The Fight, Killzone 3, tumble, Crysis 2, Mortal Kombat, GT5, The Sly Collection…all just the stuff he just mentioned.

Jack is back. Talking about life cycles. “How many ways you can be relevant in people’s lives” not just how long. Talking about the lasting effect of the PS2. Streaming Netflix, internet browsing, music, with the PS3. And PlayStation Move. “Realism.”

Peter Dille to talk about PS Move. A “future-proof” product. Casual fans and core gamers will enjoy it. He’s talking about the specs of the controller. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a little wand with a colored ball on top that is tracked by a camera. Video of developers talking about Move. It basically does what Kinect does, but with controllers. Kevin Butler poking fun again, saying that buttons are important. I can definitely see how Kinect is not really great for complex games like FPS games, whereas the Move can handle that. So that’s a really good point for them to make.

Jack says they are not here today to show things we’ve already seen, but here for brand new reveals. Sorcery with Christian Busic. You are a sorcerer’s apprentice going on magic adventures. A little magician is moving his wand around with Christian’s arm that is holding the Move wand. He’s shooting off bolts at monsters by flicking the controller in his hand. It’s a little jerky, like a Wii game. Graphics don’t exactly say “this can only be on the PS3” either. Oh that’s neat. The little ball on top of the Move wand changes colors depending on what spell he is using. He can draw walls of fire, cast AOE spells, control trajectory, etc. Spring 2011.

Sports games. EA Sports’ Andrew Wilson to talk about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11. Tiger Woods works amazingly well on the Wii with Motion Plus, by the way. But it does track your positioning more, instead of just where the controller points by standard (he made a point to say it tracks 1:1 movement instead of just using the same set animations). Boy, he shot two sand traps. Move functionality for the game will be delivered via downloaded update on PSN when the controller comes out.

One more title, a familiar franchise. It’s Heroes on the Move. A collection of some of Sony’s flagship characters all in one game. Jak, Sly, Ratchet, Daxter, Clank…I missed one. There’s 6. Looks like an action game in line with their individual games.

CocaCola supports active and positive living? Haha…. Some sort of partnership with CC Jack is talking about here, winning Sony prizes and stuff. OH IT’S THE BUTLER.

Kevin Butler is here to joke around. *heart*

Launch date for Move – Europe Sep 15, NA Sep 19, Japan Oct 21. $50 if you already own the PS3 and the Eye. $29.99 for what is basically the ‘chuk. And a $99 bundle with wand and camera plus a game. $399 for the PS3, camera and wand plus a game (Sports Champions). Ruse, Killzone 3, Singstar Dance, Echochrome 3, Eyepet… Toy Story 3, Heavy Rain, Resident Evil 5 will all have updates to enable Move. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, Brunswick Pro Bowling, The Fight Lights Out, Sports Champions, Start the Party, Singstar Dance, Eyepet (still ugly), Heroes on the Move, Superstars TV, Socom 4, Time Crisis, The Shoot, RE5, Aragorn’s Quest, Tron, Sorcery, all Move capable this fall.

Jack again. …. I think the guy I kept saying was Jack a couple times up there was NOT Jack. Oops. But this is (sorry for my confusion, they look a little similar). He’s talking about the PSP. It allows any serious gamer to “step up your game.” Some little punk kid named Marcus is the new PSP spokesperson.

Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker. Invizimals with a PSP camera peripheral. God of War Chains of Olympus. God of War Ghost of Sparta is being shown now. And that didn’t really say anything about what the game is about.

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Ace Combat, The Third Birthday, UFC, new PSP games coming out this fall. Montage of new titles coming out: MGS: PW, Mod Nation Racers, Ace Combat Joint Assault, Gravity Crash, Dragon Ball Z Tenkaichi, Hot Shots Tennis, Madden 11, Birth by Sleep, Invizimals, Patapon 3, Fat Princess, Tetris, Eyepet, Piyotama, The 3rd Birthday, P3P, Ys, Valkyria II, God of War.

Jack is talking about the PSN now. 50 million registered users. Quick blurbs about various PSN features, like Home. They recreated their E3 booth in Home. Little Big Planet, to talk about user content, etc. And Mod Nation Racers.

Alex Evans from Media Molecule for LBP2. I still don’t really get this game, but Sackboy is adorable. You can create little mini games with multi-player. Various new creation and game features. You can make shooters, driving games, various things.

Jack just came out and said that the PSN will be free, but there is a service packaged called PSPlus. It gives you expanded options – exclusive features and content for gamers. Value…. OK, what KIND. OK, early demos, select betas, discounts, automatic downloads. Available later this month, a full year is about 50 bucks. 3 months for $17.99. Oh, he just said “this extra content you will own for the duration of your subscription” so…what. It goes away and you can’t access it anymore if you stop? That kind of sucks.

EA support. John Schappert from EA. Two new titles with exclusive PS3 content – Medal of Honor. Greg Goodrich to show new content (as in, different from EA’s content yesterday). Yesterday they showed muti-player play, today is a new character named Deuce, AFO Wolfpack. In June they’re going to show Tier 1 operators to share their stories that influenced the game. New multi map reveal – Dingaw Valley? Missed the spelling. LE version for PS3 on Oct 12. Remastered HD version of Frontline will be included.

Dead Space 2 time. Saw this yesterday during the EA conf too. Steve Papoutsis is back to show us the continuation from the cliff hanger yesterday, where the character was jumped by a huge boss. Now they’re going to show what happened after. It is big and it is nasty. Tight fight in a narrow hallway, lots of dangling by the ankles. Pretty intense. LE for PS3, Dead Space 2 and DS Extraction in one, with Move support.

Jack is back and is interrupted by GLADOS. Portal 2 with Gabe Newell from Valve. Steam will be partnering up with this. And Portal 2 trailer. Guess who is Still Alive? It’s footage of GLADOS rebuilding the entire lab. “I think we can put our differences behind us, for science. You monster.” *glee*

Jack is back talking about Square Enix’s MMO, FFXIV. Gorgeous trailer. But if I’m gonna shell out for an MMO, sorry, it’s gonna be Old Republic.

2K Games. Mafia II, exclusive content on PS3, free bonuses for purchasing the game. Ubisoft – Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Exclusive missions only for PS3….dammit. Multi-player beta exclusive for PS3 too. Trailer was supposed to show some multiplayer stuff but uh, that didn’t explain or show how it’s supposed to work.

Jack is naming off some games they weren’t able to demo, like DCU, Shaun White, and some others they already mentioned but didn’t really showcase. So…montage: Socom 4, Killzone 3, Medal of Honor, DS2, Mafia II, Madden 11, NBA2K11, Tiger Woods, Sports Champions, The Fight, NCAA 11, Eyepet (still ugly), Start the Party, LBP2, The Shoot, echochrome II, Heroes on the Move, GT5, Mon Nation Racers, Motor Storm, True Crime, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Shooter 2, Mortal Kombat, Castlevania, Dead Nation, Sorcery, DCU, Sly, Tron, FFXIV, Lego Harry Potter in there and some Spider-Man. Gee, they could have shown off some more stuff if they weren’t repeating every damn thing 3 times.

Here’s another title. GT5. Ug, it just goes on and on and on….. It’s another fucking driving game. I don’t play them, so I can’t tell you how it’s different from Forza or any of the others that have been shown this week. They all look the same to me. Showing off some cars and locations like Japan. November. It’s 3D too.

Infamous 2. Looks OK. Seen better. Finally. One last surprise.

What is it. Everything went dark. It’s a car. Oh, it’s some live action commercial something or other. From Papa Johns. Not the game, just the commercial is presented by PJ’s. Still waiting to see what it is. Pan up on a character, it isssssss a crazy clown. Twisted Metal. Sony just rolled out a fucking truck on stage with a costumed guy hanging out. 2011. Demoing online team death match mode. 16 players, with 2 and 4 player split screen. Helicopter fights. New mode: Nuke. Fighting up skyscrapers, along freeways…. In Nuke you destroy these giant statues hanging from helicopters. You capture the faction leader, shoot off a huge missile, and guide it to the target.

Jack wrapping up, talking about innovation and content. Little surprising that there was nothing about Last Guardian in there anywhere. Portal 2 I guess was a big announcement for them, but I'll play that on the PC. And that’s that. No more conferences to blog. Tonight on G4 they’re doing a half hour look at the Old Republic MMO though; you should watch.