E3: Sony Conference Summary
- Scribbled on July 15th, 2008 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in E3, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3
Here’s a summary of Sony’s press conference, which focused basically on price cuts and deals – and offering a Blu-Ray movie any chance they get, trying to get people to buy Blu-Ray players:
- Sony announces a Greatest Hits line similar to Microsoft’s Platinum hits, for $30 games such as Resistance and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- A new PlayStation 2 bundle for $149, which will include LEGO Batman and a Blu-Ray movie Justice League
- Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty will be $15
- The upcoming PSN titles will be Crash Commando, Fat Princess, Pain: Amusement Park, Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic. Those of you who don’t know, Rag Doll Kung Fu was a nifty little Source title from a few years ago. At the time, it was basically a tech demo – let’s see what sort of actual game is built around it.
- A new PSP bundle, which includes a silver slim PSP, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, a 1gb memory stick, and a Blu-Ray copy of National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.
- The PSP version of Resistance, but in third-person and called Resistance: Retribution for Spring 2009
- A 80GB PS3 for $399 in September
- A 256-player online “MAG” (Massive Action Game) Don’t know if “MAG” is the title or a placeholder title.
The biggest title, well, actually, the only big title that they mentioned was the official announcement of God of War 3, though hardly a surprise since some PS3 games had the ad for it right there. After Microsoft’s press conference, I was half-expecting them to announce, “And next year, Bioshock 2 on the PlayStation 3!”
When are they going to kill off the PS2, by the way? Is that all it’s good for now – offering a Blu-Ray movie to force people to buy a Blu-Ray player or a PS3 so they can play it?
July 15th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Thought the Sony conference went well, best since at least 2005. They actually had positive trends to announce, stuck with the game plan, covered what needed to be covered and had a cute presentation with Sack Boy which was well done.
I don’t think it was a great decision to put the PS2 stuff _after_ they covered the PS3 stuff because it made the teasers and trailers show the dated graphics.
Overall, well done for Sony. They didn’t spend too much time tooting their own horn, showed some figures and covered their 3-tier solution of PS2, PSP and PS3 without calling out, too much, any one system (as they are all not performing as well as the competitors)
July 15th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Where was the “OMFG!” moment? Did you hear the gasps and cheers when Final Fantasy XIII logo appeared at the Microsoft press conference?
Heck, they didn’t even have a “Netflix + 360, so happy together” level of moment.
It was all price cuts and bundles.
Are you giving them points for not embarrassing themselves with giant crabs, real-time weapon switching and going for the weak point for massive damage?
July 15th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Sure, they could have wowed the crowd with promise of some 13th sequel game like FF, but Resistance 2 looked pretty good to me.
All the PS3 footage was pretty impressive, graphically.
When you’ve got the highest priced console on the market a price cut is press
Microsoft’s was better than last year, games for windows and promise that anyone would actually care about it, and MS Live support on windows (if you’re in a game, there’s a catch) was pretty shitty. They had to do something this year to provide evidence of a gaming future instead of Games for Windows.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Sony’s always shown nice videos. Especially pre-rendered ones.