Sony has made a STRONG presence at E3 already. Their press conference started off with Kaz Hirai rattling off some really strong numbers, like having over 100 million PS2 units shipped, 55 million PSPs shipped and over 1 billion PS2 games shipped. In addition, there have been well over 100 movies released on the UMD, some selling strikingly well. Sony showed off a montage of PSP titles, with some impressive-looking games like a new Syphon Filter and Loco Roco, and announced they had a download station set up for media elites to start downloading demos.
After a montage of some global games, Sony started with the PS3. The PS3 had key features outlined like Bluetooth compatibility, a HDD, Blue Ray drive. In addition, he announced the PS3 will be backwards compatible with the PS1 and PS2. He went on to explain how the future of games will necessitate disks with the capacity brought by the PS3. In addition, and very importantly, he announced PS3 will be coming out early November, worldwide, and stated that there will indeed be playable PS3 games on the show floor. He went on to introduce Phil Harrison, President of SCE Worldwide, who went on to, and quickly introduced Kazunori Yamauchi, head of Gran Turismo. He then showed off the Gran Turismo HD trailer, with 1920x1080p resolution, which had GT4 footage, remade in PS3-caliber graphics. He went on to actually show that this was indeed real-time, showing off the Tokyo track with optional cars and bikes, and shows utterly stunning graphics, and went on to say that this GT:HD was twelve times more powerful than GT4, and made sure to point out how the PS3's load times with GT:HD were virtually non-existent. Once he finished with the demos of GT:HD, he went on to say the PS3 would be able to pull off graphics that were even better than this. He also talked about an online version of GT4 which will begin beta-testing shortly after E3.
After, Harrison came back and discussed an upcoming card game, and introduced a card game coming out for the Eyetoy on the PS3 called Eye of Judgment. They showed off a very interesting demo that was very reminiscent of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, where they would play a card on the board, it would get read by the Eye Toy, and it would then be used in the game. He reintroduced NAME again, and talked about the Eye Toy and how it would be able to be used for video chat, instant messaging, and many interesting features free of charge. He then went on to show off the recently-announced feature that allows gamers to play PS1 games on the PSP, and played the original Ridge Racer game, and re-introduced Phil Harrison. Then Harrison went on to show an interesting PS3 feature, where people could purchase expansions to their games, and buy songs for games like Singstar, an upcoming Karaoke-type game for the PS3.
He then brought in members of Game Republic to show off Genji 2, which would be able to have hundreds of units on at a time. He went on to show off new features added to this sequel, like real-time weapon and character changing, allowing for massive combos. Harrison was re-introduced and showed off another interesting feature which showed off how the PS3 could link with the PSP, and showed off a racing game that used the PSP as a rear-view mirror. He then showed off Heavenly Sword, and intensely violent, and VERY impressive action game for the PS3, with awesome graphics and very action-heavy gameplay, very reminiscent of God of War. He then showed off some trailers for "far-off" PS3 games, being Lair, Getaway, Afrika, Everybody's Golf and Monster Kingdom. After the trailers, he showed two new games, announced for the first time, being the driving-and-shooting game Eight Days, which showed off what looked to be some off some intense action scenes and highly interactive environments, containing actual gameplay, and an awesome trailer for a nameless game with awesome fight scenes. After, he brings in Insomniac to show off actual gameplay for Resistance, a FPS with awesome graphics, set in the 1950s…but filled with monsters that have destroyed the entire world except for London, and discussed some of its online multiplayer mode, which will have the option for 32-player battles. They reintroduced Hirai, and then began trailers for third party games like Assassin's Creed, Gundam, Coded Arms: Assault, Ridge Racer: A New Beginning, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Tekken 6, Sonic the Hedgehog, Virtua Tennis 3, Virtua Fighter 5, among others. With those out of the way, they began discussing the future of sports games. They discussed how cripplingly unrealistically people move, and the future of sports games, and just how much better they will be on the PS3. Then came MGS4 and FFXIII, with two of the best trailers yet. The FFXIII trailer was…ahem…similar to that of the one from the Square-Enix conference earlier today. The MGS4 trailer was all new, and showed off most of the MGS cast, including some old favorites like Ocelot, but also some of the less-popular characters like Raiden.
With the conference wrapping up Hirai unveiled the controller, which moves in "four dimensions." Many Nintendo fanboys all complained that Sony would rip off the controller of the Wii, and they were, in part correct. The controller looks pretty much like a regular PS2 dual shock controller, and will have "tilt" functionality that will not need an external sensor like the Wii, and explained the upcoming game Warhawk would this thoroughly. Last but quite possibly most importantly was the announcement of the price. There will be two sizes of HDD in the PS3, being 20 GB and 60 GB. The PS3 will launch in America and Canada on November 17, with the 20GB costing $499 ($549 in Canada) and the 60GB costing $599 ($649 in Canada). Sony plans to sell 2 million units worldwide in the launch window, 4 million by December 31, and 6 million by March 31, 2007.
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