[E3 2009] Sony E3 Press Conference Wrap-Up
New Metal Gear! Motion controls! New Team ICO game! Exclusive Rockstar game! Exclamtion points!
Published: June 2, 2009
This year's E3 press conference was do or die time for Sony. The PS3, while basking in the healthy glow of plenty of great game releases hitting... well, as you read this, actually, hasn't been picking up a head of steam sales-wise. Not surprisingly, there was no real mention of this at the presser, nor was there any talk of prices beyond the new PSPgo (which we'll get to in a second). Instead, the focus was on what was coming soon, and while there were a few surprises (some of them quite a bit bigger than others), most of what we saw reinforces what we've been thinking for the past few months: Sony's got a hell of a lot of stuff in 2009 and early 2010.
In the interest of breaking things down and collecting it all in one place, we'll try to do this as best we can from memory, filling in gaps as need be. If we can do updates on things throughout the rest of E3, we'll make sure to update this story accordingly.
[PlayStation 2]
Apparently the price cut for the system has spurred sales a bit; sneaking in under that magical $100 price point is clearly having a benefit for a system that's been on the market for a whopping nine years, and Sony was all too happy to point out that the system would get almost a hundred games this year. Ten years seems quite reasonable, and judging by the amount of support that the PS one got in its final years, the PS2 could be supported well beyond the typical "10 year lifecycle" talking points Sony trumpets every chance they get.
In a clear sign that not only the general public but indeed Sony has all but finished the transition from the previous generation of hardware to the newer goods, that was all the mention the PS2 got (beyond a general callout that with all three systems combined, Sony pulled down about 30% of all the moolah coming out of the games industry last year). Fair enough, the old girl has served her time, and we've certainly move on. Yes, we're fickle like that.
:Major Announcements:
-Well, uh, it's still around? And it's getting games? Yeah, basically nothing.
[PlayStation Portable]
Just a few months ago, the PSP was quite literally dead on the software side. There were weeks that went by without a release, much less a compelling one, and though the hardware was still moving, piracy was turning software sales into a wasteland. Something major needed to happen, and hooboy did it.
Leaked not only early, but by an "accidental" upload of the latest issue of the Qore digital magazine on the PlayStation Network itself, the PSPgo is real -- and real expensive. Dropping in October, the system will retail for a whopping $250. The system serves as a complement rather than a replacement for the PSP-3000, giving retailers reason to breathe a sigh of relief that the few remaining PSP games they have on shelves won't be going anywhere.
The go is now Sony's digital distribution platform, a way to push all the games and, now, movies they have on the PlayStation Store out to consumers that have essentially given the notion of dealing with physical formats like UMD the finger. It's not a bad way to do things, honestly, and as you'll see in our impressions of the hardware, everything feels quite solid. To support the new platform, the PlayStation Store will be getting plenty of new PS one games, the PC software used to connect to the Store and move things to the PSP is being re-branded and updated as Media Go! and a new "mood-based" music recommendation tool that analyzes your audio, dubbed SenseMe will all be kicked up anywhere from right now to in a few months down the line, all of which will work on both the go and the 3000. Oh, and the PSP dev kits? Yeah, they're going to drop in price by eighty (yes, 8-0) percent. Zounds.
The software side of things was even more exciting. Gran Turismo Mobile (now dubbed simply "Gran Turismo") is real! And only a few months away! Eeeeeee!!! Along with it came news of a new Resident Evil, a continuation of the Jak & Daxter cannon, a PSP version of LittleBigPlanet and Fat Princes. With the exception of Polyphony Digital head honcho Kazunori Yamauchi spending plenty of time telling us GT PSP was "a full-size" game rather than a stripped-down iteration, the bulk of the PSP's software focus was given to none other than Hideo Kojima himself, who announced Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
A sequel to MGS3 and a continuation that takes place a decade after the events of MGS3 with Outer Heaven being established by Big Boss, Peace Walker has Kojima's full involvement, meaning that, yet again, he's reneged on his promise to move on to other stuff and is instead treating this as a full, proper Metal Gear Solid game. It just happens to be on the PSP, which Kojima plans to fully exploit as best he can. Great news for Snake fans, bad news for those of us who were hoping for, say, Zone of the Enders three or the face-melting awesomeness of a Snatcher or Policenauts next-gen remake/sequel. Ah well.
:Major Announcements:
-PSP go is official, is officially a little on the pricy side
-PSP Store getting updated to include movies natively, plenty of PS one games on the way
-Gran Turismo on the PSP is real, and it's only months away
-Metal Gear Solid continues not on next-gen hardware, but on the PSP, as a fully Kojima-directed, canonical continuation of MGS3
-Tons of awesome looking games are coming. The drought is officially almost over.
[PlayStation 3]
And then we come to the big guns. The epicenter for all of Sony's potential and the biggest source of potential new customers for the company. Counter to what many had hoped (and even expected), there was no news of a price drop, nor was the PS3 slim acknowledged (not surprising, as it would have taken even more wind out of the waning sales sails of our lovable black brick). Though it was something of a bummer to know the system would continue to stumble, sales-wise until August or September when the cat is finally let out of the bag at GamesCon or the Tokyo Game Show, we were more than content with the software side of things.
Things kicked off with a proper bang. Even Wells, Naughty Dog's co-President, quickly cut to the chase and showed off some of the gameplay from Uncharted 2 that officially left the crowd alternating from whooping to stunned silence. Drake, along with new female partner Chloe, battled an attack helicopter, tons of enemies, and even dove out of a building as it was collapsing. It was, hands-down, the most impressive demonstration of an actual game that we'll be able to play in a few months we've ever seen. The video is up on the PSN, go download it and you'll see what we mean. No time to dally, it's summarizing time!
The software announcements quickly piled atop one another. Rockstar North (y'know, the guys that worked on that one series... What's it called? Oh, right, Grand Theft Auto IV) are now working on the PS3 exclusive Agent. Also exclusive "when it launches" is next year's Final Fantasy XIV Online, the next-gen MMORPG that (hopefully) learns from the freshman efforts of Final Fantasy XI -- a great game, don't get us wrong, but it was a little... grind-heavy. Gran Turismo 5, shown only in real-time damn-near-CG quality trailer form, had damage (!), NASCAR (zzzz) and WRC (!!!) licenses now all officially in. It's coming, though GT PSP is clearly coming first. Team ICO's next game officially has a title: The Last Guardian. The trailer the internets stumbled across was shown again, this time in completed form, and with proper music, and it was, in a word, emotional. How the hell Team ICO is able to convey so much emotion in just animation is beyond words, but the trailer certainly got us more pumped than we were before.
And then there were stage demos. Lots of 'em. Uncharted 2 kicked things off, but MAG, which we're still cautiously optimistic on, Assassin's Creed 2, ModNation Racers and God ofWar III were all demoed live. While the Assassin's Creed 2 demo was brilliant, showing new assassin Ezio stalking his victims using Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine to soar above Venice and the canals to swim below and escape, more surprising was the news that there would be cross-talk between AC2 on the PS3 and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (which stars original assassin Altair) on the PSP, unlocking new weapons for Ezio. Fancy! The God of War III demo was identical to the one we'd seen a few months ago with the exception of a new lighting pass which made things feel much more... "next-gen" for lack of a better term.
ModNation Racers piggybacked off the "Play. Create. Share." Mantra of LittleBigPlanet to deliver a kart racer with a ridiculously deep track editor. One needed only to drive the route, winding and undulating the track as needed to create the path all the racers could take. At any time, the creator can jump into the track and race it, and the game will populate things with AI racers to ensure it's actually fun to play. Everything from sideline details to time of day can be thrown in with simple tools, and as we discovered with our breakout session, things were impressively simple, yet incredibly flexible, just like the tools in LittleBigPlanet. Neat.
The biggest "wow" moment for us, however, came from the hardware side of things. In addition to launching DualShock 3s in Deep Red, Satin Silver and Metallic Blue (hopefully a precursor to PS3s of the same color), Sony was working on a new way of controlling things. In truth, it's hardly "new." Dr. Richard Marks, creator of the EyeToy and PlayStation Eye, has been toiling away on a motion controller long before the Wii ever launched, and the results were finally shown off. A glowing ball was attached to a wand equipped with triggers, an analog stick and buttons, just like the normal DualShock, but with that ball the Eye could finally track true 3D movement. The accelerometers built into the want, just as they did in the SIXAXIS, could detect normal X-, Y- and Z-axis movements, but with the ball (and some seriously upgraded sensitivity in the accelerometers), the new wand was able to near-instantly and on a sub-millimeter level, track movements in a 1:1, 3D space.
It might sound like something of a me-too effort on Sony's part, but they've been working on the tech for quite a while now (as shown in patent filings and articles going back more than half a decade). Coupled with Sony's experience in tracking body movements with the EyeToy and the ability to see movements on an incredibly small scale, this new motion controller (particularly if it's coupled with the rumored break-apart controller) has the potential to outshine both Wii Motion+ and Microsoft's Natal interfaces... potentially.
The demos shown off weren't really a great indicator of that, though. Showcasing equal parts augmented reality -- where a weapon could be superimposed over the wand to hide it and make the player look like they were sort of wielding a handful of weapons (including a slick mace and a laser whip that moved realistically) -- and eerily Wii-similar motion control demonstrations, it was probably best left up to someone with a bit more stage presence. The pair of Sony engineers were, in a word, nervous, and it showed, but the actual demos were incredibly precise; the writing demo was particularly impressive, as it was mouse-precise while being used like a pen, which holds plenty of possibilities.
An archery demo, first-person shooter movements (where moving around the room was actually reflected in the angle and perspective), real-time strategy (a set of units could be selected by just drawing a line around them like a mouse, while one unit could be dove into to control FPS-style), some sword fighting, shuriken-chucking and sword/shield blocking demos were all showcased, though in all honestly we would have loved to have seen a real game with the tech already implemented. Luckily, we'll supposedly only have to wait until next Spring to actually try it out.
:Major Announcements:
-3D 1:1 motion controls are coming (see above)
-Rockstar North is working on Agent, a new exclusive property
-Final Fantasy XIV is debuting exclusively on the PS3
[PlayStation Network]
The PSN has been maturing almost constantly since it first debuted as a web-based store that made people want to tear their eyes out and lop off their fingers. Thanks to being completely free and allowing users to register multiple (and, most importantly, international) accounts, the number of registered users has climbed to an impressive 24 million -- which for those keeping track is a whopping two million more than the number of PlayStation 3s sold last year, mean, yes, people are registering accounts in Japan, Europe and, if they're like us, Hong Kong to get some of that sweet, sweet English-translated Japanese content.
Aside from a montage of legitimately awesome games and expansions like Fat Princess and the new WipEout HD Fury Pack, there wasn't a whole lot of new stuff being shown off, which is something of a shame. Guess Sony's going for the disc-based stuff for now, though that doesn't mean there weren't a few interesting prospects you'll see more of in our previews section.
All those accounts did mean that Sony was able to lock down some new providers for the PlayStation Store's video service: Showtime, Starz (which includes film, TV and anime additions in one fell swoop), G4 & E!, Summit Entertainment, The Weinstein Company, HDnet & Magnolia Pictures have all joined the party. Anime fans can now count, Anime Network, Media Blasters, Right Stuf's Nozomi Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, Toei Animation, Viz Media, WEP and FUNimation among their newfound content providers. Sports partners include HDNet Fights, UFC, TNA Wrestling and Video Action Sports. The new partners and tireless additions to the store have notched a whopping 9400 TV episodes and almost 1900 movies. Not bad for a service that launched about a year ago, eh?
:Major Announcements:
-Um... New movies 'n stuff? And anime we guess?
In all, the show was more about reinforcement than blowing the doors off things. The new motion controller was easily packed with the most potential for us, but we really need to see if all that R&D time will pay off with games. In our head, fantasies of combining the break-apart DualShock with these new lights could mean traditional games could still be played normally, but that new experiences could use that as a jumping-off point. Pure fantasy, we know, but it didn't stop us from thinking how badass it would be to actually charge up an attack with Cole in inFAMOUS by pulling the controller apart to create a huge arc of electricity between his/our hands and then flinging it at enemies before putting the whole thing back together and returning to our normal controller-based sniping. No, seriously, think about it, it'd make you feel awesome if the thing was vibrating like mad in both your hands and then you let loose with it. Yes it would, shut up!
Impossible tangents aside, the show was at least re-affirming. Yes, Sony has a bunch of great games coming, and no, they're not dawdling when it comes to advancing the hardware. We now have to look to the next two big international venues for the announcements of a price cut and new hardware that the PS3 so desperately needs, then we can sit back and enjoy the awesomeness as it rolls in. And now, we're off to write up all the great stuff we're going to see in the next few days. Check back often!
In the interest of breaking things down and collecting it all in one place, we'll try to do this as best we can from memory, filling in gaps as need be. If we can do updates on things throughout the rest of E3, we'll make sure to update this story accordingly.
[PlayStation 2]
Apparently the price cut for the system has spurred sales a bit; sneaking in under that magical $100 price point is clearly having a benefit for a system that's been on the market for a whopping nine years, and Sony was all too happy to point out that the system would get almost a hundred games this year. Ten years seems quite reasonable, and judging by the amount of support that the PS one got in its final years, the PS2 could be supported well beyond the typical "10 year lifecycle" talking points Sony trumpets every chance they get.
In a clear sign that not only the general public but indeed Sony has all but finished the transition from the previous generation of hardware to the newer goods, that was all the mention the PS2 got (beyond a general callout that with all three systems combined, Sony pulled down about 30% of all the moolah coming out of the games industry last year). Fair enough, the old girl has served her time, and we've certainly move on. Yes, we're fickle like that.
:Major Announcements:
-Well, uh, it's still around? And it's getting games? Yeah, basically nothing.
[PlayStation Portable]
Just a few months ago, the PSP was quite literally dead on the software side. There were weeks that went by without a release, much less a compelling one, and though the hardware was still moving, piracy was turning software sales into a wasteland. Something major needed to happen, and hooboy did it.
Leaked not only early, but by an "accidental" upload of the latest issue of the Qore digital magazine on the PlayStation Network itself, the PSPgo is real -- and real expensive. Dropping in October, the system will retail for a whopping $250. The system serves as a complement rather than a replacement for the PSP-3000, giving retailers reason to breathe a sigh of relief that the few remaining PSP games they have on shelves won't be going anywhere.
The go is now Sony's digital distribution platform, a way to push all the games and, now, movies they have on the PlayStation Store out to consumers that have essentially given the notion of dealing with physical formats like UMD the finger. It's not a bad way to do things, honestly, and as you'll see in our impressions of the hardware, everything feels quite solid. To support the new platform, the PlayStation Store will be getting plenty of new PS one games, the PC software used to connect to the Store and move things to the PSP is being re-branded and updated as Media Go! and a new "mood-based" music recommendation tool that analyzes your audio, dubbed SenseMe will all be kicked up anywhere from right now to in a few months down the line, all of which will work on both the go and the 3000. Oh, and the PSP dev kits? Yeah, they're going to drop in price by eighty (yes, 8-0) percent. Zounds.
The software side of things was even more exciting. Gran Turismo Mobile (now dubbed simply "Gran Turismo") is real! And only a few months away! Eeeeeee!!! Along with it came news of a new Resident Evil, a continuation of the Jak & Daxter cannon, a PSP version of LittleBigPlanet and Fat Princes. With the exception of Polyphony Digital head honcho Kazunori Yamauchi spending plenty of time telling us GT PSP was "a full-size" game rather than a stripped-down iteration, the bulk of the PSP's software focus was given to none other than Hideo Kojima himself, who announced Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
A sequel to MGS3 and a continuation that takes place a decade after the events of MGS3 with Outer Heaven being established by Big Boss, Peace Walker has Kojima's full involvement, meaning that, yet again, he's reneged on his promise to move on to other stuff and is instead treating this as a full, proper Metal Gear Solid game. It just happens to be on the PSP, which Kojima plans to fully exploit as best he can. Great news for Snake fans, bad news for those of us who were hoping for, say, Zone of the Enders three or the face-melting awesomeness of a Snatcher or Policenauts next-gen remake/sequel. Ah well.
:Major Announcements:
-PSP go is official, is officially a little on the pricy side
-PSP Store getting updated to include movies natively, plenty of PS one games on the way
-Gran Turismo on the PSP is real, and it's only months away
-Metal Gear Solid continues not on next-gen hardware, but on the PSP, as a fully Kojima-directed, canonical continuation of MGS3
-Tons of awesome looking games are coming. The drought is officially almost over.
[PlayStation 3]
And then we come to the big guns. The epicenter for all of Sony's potential and the biggest source of potential new customers for the company. Counter to what many had hoped (and even expected), there was no news of a price drop, nor was the PS3 slim acknowledged (not surprising, as it would have taken even more wind out of the waning sales sails of our lovable black brick). Though it was something of a bummer to know the system would continue to stumble, sales-wise until August or September when the cat is finally let out of the bag at GamesCon or the Tokyo Game Show, we were more than content with the software side of things.
Things kicked off with a proper bang. Even Wells, Naughty Dog's co-President, quickly cut to the chase and showed off some of the gameplay from Uncharted 2 that officially left the crowd alternating from whooping to stunned silence. Drake, along with new female partner Chloe, battled an attack helicopter, tons of enemies, and even dove out of a building as it was collapsing. It was, hands-down, the most impressive demonstration of an actual game that we'll be able to play in a few months we've ever seen. The video is up on the PSN, go download it and you'll see what we mean. No time to dally, it's summarizing time!
The software announcements quickly piled atop one another. Rockstar North (y'know, the guys that worked on that one series... What's it called? Oh, right, Grand Theft Auto IV) are now working on the PS3 exclusive Agent. Also exclusive "when it launches" is next year's Final Fantasy XIV Online, the next-gen MMORPG that (hopefully) learns from the freshman efforts of Final Fantasy XI -- a great game, don't get us wrong, but it was a little... grind-heavy. Gran Turismo 5, shown only in real-time damn-near-CG quality trailer form, had damage (!), NASCAR (zzzz) and WRC (!!!) licenses now all officially in. It's coming, though GT PSP is clearly coming first. Team ICO's next game officially has a title: The Last Guardian. The trailer the internets stumbled across was shown again, this time in completed form, and with proper music, and it was, in a word, emotional. How the hell Team ICO is able to convey so much emotion in just animation is beyond words, but the trailer certainly got us more pumped than we were before.
And then there were stage demos. Lots of 'em. Uncharted 2 kicked things off, but MAG, which we're still cautiously optimistic on, Assassin's Creed 2, ModNation Racers and God ofWar III were all demoed live. While the Assassin's Creed 2 demo was brilliant, showing new assassin Ezio stalking his victims using Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine to soar above Venice and the canals to swim below and escape, more surprising was the news that there would be cross-talk between AC2 on the PS3 and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (which stars original assassin Altair) on the PSP, unlocking new weapons for Ezio. Fancy! The God of War III demo was identical to the one we'd seen a few months ago with the exception of a new lighting pass which made things feel much more... "next-gen" for lack of a better term.
ModNation Racers piggybacked off the "Play. Create. Share." Mantra of LittleBigPlanet to deliver a kart racer with a ridiculously deep track editor. One needed only to drive the route, winding and undulating the track as needed to create the path all the racers could take. At any time, the creator can jump into the track and race it, and the game will populate things with AI racers to ensure it's actually fun to play. Everything from sideline details to time of day can be thrown in with simple tools, and as we discovered with our breakout session, things were impressively simple, yet incredibly flexible, just like the tools in LittleBigPlanet. Neat.
The biggest "wow" moment for us, however, came from the hardware side of things. In addition to launching DualShock 3s in Deep Red, Satin Silver and Metallic Blue (hopefully a precursor to PS3s of the same color), Sony was working on a new way of controlling things. In truth, it's hardly "new." Dr. Richard Marks, creator of the EyeToy and PlayStation Eye, has been toiling away on a motion controller long before the Wii ever launched, and the results were finally shown off. A glowing ball was attached to a wand equipped with triggers, an analog stick and buttons, just like the normal DualShock, but with that ball the Eye could finally track true 3D movement. The accelerometers built into the want, just as they did in the SIXAXIS, could detect normal X-, Y- and Z-axis movements, but with the ball (and some seriously upgraded sensitivity in the accelerometers), the new wand was able to near-instantly and on a sub-millimeter level, track movements in a 1:1, 3D space.
It might sound like something of a me-too effort on Sony's part, but they've been working on the tech for quite a while now (as shown in patent filings and articles going back more than half a decade). Coupled with Sony's experience in tracking body movements with the EyeToy and the ability to see movements on an incredibly small scale, this new motion controller (particularly if it's coupled with the rumored break-apart controller) has the potential to outshine both Wii Motion+ and Microsoft's Natal interfaces... potentially.
The demos shown off weren't really a great indicator of that, though. Showcasing equal parts augmented reality -- where a weapon could be superimposed over the wand to hide it and make the player look like they were sort of wielding a handful of weapons (including a slick mace and a laser whip that moved realistically) -- and eerily Wii-similar motion control demonstrations, it was probably best left up to someone with a bit more stage presence. The pair of Sony engineers were, in a word, nervous, and it showed, but the actual demos were incredibly precise; the writing demo was particularly impressive, as it was mouse-precise while being used like a pen, which holds plenty of possibilities.
An archery demo, first-person shooter movements (where moving around the room was actually reflected in the angle and perspective), real-time strategy (a set of units could be selected by just drawing a line around them like a mouse, while one unit could be dove into to control FPS-style), some sword fighting, shuriken-chucking and sword/shield blocking demos were all showcased, though in all honestly we would have loved to have seen a real game with the tech already implemented. Luckily, we'll supposedly only have to wait until next Spring to actually try it out.
:Major Announcements:
-3D 1:1 motion controls are coming (see above)
-Rockstar North is working on Agent, a new exclusive property
-Final Fantasy XIV is debuting exclusively on the PS3
[PlayStation Network]
The PSN has been maturing almost constantly since it first debuted as a web-based store that made people want to tear their eyes out and lop off their fingers. Thanks to being completely free and allowing users to register multiple (and, most importantly, international) accounts, the number of registered users has climbed to an impressive 24 million -- which for those keeping track is a whopping two million more than the number of PlayStation 3s sold last year, mean, yes, people are registering accounts in Japan, Europe and, if they're like us, Hong Kong to get some of that sweet, sweet English-translated Japanese content.
Aside from a montage of legitimately awesome games and expansions like Fat Princess and the new WipEout HD Fury Pack, there wasn't a whole lot of new stuff being shown off, which is something of a shame. Guess Sony's going for the disc-based stuff for now, though that doesn't mean there weren't a few interesting prospects you'll see more of in our previews section.
All those accounts did mean that Sony was able to lock down some new providers for the PlayStation Store's video service: Showtime, Starz (which includes film, TV and anime additions in one fell swoop), G4 & E!, Summit Entertainment, The Weinstein Company, HDnet & Magnolia Pictures have all joined the party. Anime fans can now count, Anime Network, Media Blasters, Right Stuf's Nozomi Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, Toei Animation, Viz Media, WEP and FUNimation among their newfound content providers. Sports partners include HDNet Fights, UFC, TNA Wrestling and Video Action Sports. The new partners and tireless additions to the store have notched a whopping 9400 TV episodes and almost 1900 movies. Not bad for a service that launched about a year ago, eh?
:Major Announcements:
-Um... New movies 'n stuff? And anime we guess?
In all, the show was more about reinforcement than blowing the doors off things. The new motion controller was easily packed with the most potential for us, but we really need to see if all that R&D time will pay off with games. In our head, fantasies of combining the break-apart DualShock with these new lights could mean traditional games could still be played normally, but that new experiences could use that as a jumping-off point. Pure fantasy, we know, but it didn't stop us from thinking how badass it would be to actually charge up an attack with Cole in inFAMOUS by pulling the controller apart to create a huge arc of electricity between his/our hands and then flinging it at enemies before putting the whole thing back together and returning to our normal controller-based sniping. No, seriously, think about it, it'd make you feel awesome if the thing was vibrating like mad in both your hands and then you let loose with it. Yes it would, shut up!
Impossible tangents aside, the show was at least re-affirming. Yes, Sony has a bunch of great games coming, and no, they're not dawdling when it comes to advancing the hardware. We now have to look to the next two big international venues for the announcements of a price cut and new hardware that the PS3 so desperately needs, then we can sit back and enjoy the awesomeness as it rolls in. And now, we're off to write up all the great stuff we're going to see in the next few days. Check back often!
