Sony show highlights:
- A handful of new exclusive games were highlighted, including Uncharted 3: Drake’s Fortune, inFamous 2 and Resistance 3.
- The Move is still going strong, and several new titles will feature Move compatibility. Among those are NBA2K12, inFamous 2, Saints Row 3, Star Trek, and BioShock Infinite.
- A few new games were officially announced, including: God of War Origins—an HD and 3D remastered version of the PSP God of War games, the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD remastered collection which will also be in 3D, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and Dust 514 from the makers of Eve Online.
- 3D isn’t going anywhere, and Sony will offer a new TV bundle that includes a 24” 3D TV specifically made with the PS3 in mind. It will include two sets of active glasses, it is designed to have split-screen 3D and comes with Resistance 3, all for $499.
- The NGP is now officially named the Vita, and will come in two flavors: Wi-fi for $249 or 3G for $299. Both will be released in time for the holidays.
The show began simply enough, just a few thousand press and video game industry people together to look at the stage that almost certainly cost tens of thousands of dollars. No big deal, happens all the time in the lives of jet-setting gaming press. Or so we hear.
Once the shock and awe of the massive set wore off, the Sony press event then began with an act of contrition of sorts. SCEA President Jack Tretton began the show by addressing what he described as the elephant in the room—the recent PSN outage. You may have heard about it. Tretton was somewhat humbled and delivered a carefully worded apology to the third party developers that suffered a loss of revenue from the outage, before he went on to apologize to the gamers for “taking you away from doing what you love to do”. He did not address the glaring security holes that allowed the outage, nor did he mention the loss of credit card information, but it was a necessary and welcome way to clear the air and get the show going. Tretton claimed that the PSN was back to 90-percent of what it was, and that sales for the PS3 continued to look good. He also claimed a surprising fact—the PS3 is responsible for 30-percent of Netflix’s streaming traffic, making it responsible for the highest single percent of Netflix’s traffic. He went over these numbers quickly before he quickly moved on to the games.
Coming Soon to a PS3 near you
After a clip showing off several upcoming games, the focus fell on Uncharted 3: Drake’s Fortune. It began with a gameply demo that had Nathan Drake on a freighter at sea. As the waves rocked the ship, Drake’s balance became an issue as he worked his way silently through a guard filled hallway, taking out enemies quietly one by one, on his way to the hold. Things went wrong, as they tend to do for Nathan Drake, and an explosion began to sink the ship. The freighter flips on its side and water floods in. After a series of daring escapes, Drake is left running for his life, one step ahead of a wall of water when the trailer ends.
The gameplay demo was followed by an actual trailer in 3D, which discussed the plot and showed a few glimpses of the settings. It was also announced that the multiplayer beta will begin on June 28. But intriguingly, it was announced that in October, Subway will be running some unnamed promotion to grant people access to the complete multiplayer before the game is released. Expect to hear more about that in the coming months.
Next up was Resistance 3, which takes place four years after the events of Resistance 2. A gameplay demo was shown, and St. Louis was the chosen battleground. A handful of new weapons were displayed, and the Move compatibility was emphasized.
A trailer for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time debuted, and two remastered collections were also announced. God of War: Origins, collecting the two PSP God of War games will be remastered in HD for the PS3 and made 3D compatible, as will the long awaited Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection.
Sucker Punch’s inFamous 2 was also shown off with a new trailer, and Move compatibility was confirmed. A new trailer for Starhaw,k from the makers of Warhawk was also shown.
One of the more interesting new titles announced was Dust 514, from the makers of Eve Online. The trailer was brief, and it appears to keep the sci-fi setting, but as an FPS. The thing that caught everyone’s attention was that the game would have cross platform compatibility between both PC and PS3. A closed beta is due later this summer, and the game is due out in Spring.
Sony hearts 3D
Sony has so much invested in 3D, that if they hadn’t pushed it at E3, something would have been terribly wrong. That was never an issue though, and besides the several games due out in 3D, Sony announced a new 3DTV bundle, made specifically with PS3 players in mind.
The bundle will include a 24” 3DTV, which can display splitscreen TV for gaming, two pair of active 3D glasses, and a copy of Resistance 3, all for $499.
Also announced was a price cut for additional pairs of active glasses, which will now cost $69.99.
The Move Strikes Back
Sony wants to make sure that you have not forgotten about the Move, and after this E3 and all the games coming out that are Move compatible, that won’t be an issue.
Leading the charge was NBA2K12. To show off how easy it is to play the game with a Move, a special guest star came out to lend a hand—Kobe Bryant.
Kobe quickly lost the ball, then got it back and ran out of bounds before a digital Dwayne Wade scored on him. He finally made a basket and after justifiably praising the incredible graphics and movement of the teams, he left.
Next up was a Move specific game called Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest. The game is seen from a FPS perspective, and the demo showed one hand controlling a shield, while the other controlled a sword. It was oddly similar in gameplay, although not tone, to the Kinect game Ryse which was debuted earlier today at the Microsoft press event. The graphics and movements are far more cartoony in this game though. There wasn’t much more to see, so expect to hear more later.
Sony then debuted a quick peek at the upcoming Star Trek action game that will be based on the JJ Abrams movies, and be Move compatible. It was a brief clip that highlighted third-person action, but it was over quickly.
Finally, the biggest applause came when a new trailer began, showing off a few new clips from BioShock Infinite. Ken Levine of Irrational Games came on stage and began with a story about an interview he gave where he disparaged gesture controls in general, and where he had heaped a particularly large amount of scorn on the Move.
Sony then contacted him and were determined to win him over. It took some doing, but it worked, and BioShock Infinite will now be a Move compatible game.
The Competitive Edge via EA
Tretton then went through a few games that will feature some PS exclusivity, all from EA. He began with EA’s snowboarding game SSX. The new game in that series will feature Mt. Fuji as an exclusive mountain playable only on the PS3 version of the game.
Next up was the next Need for Speed, which will come with eight supercars standard, but PS3 owners will receive an additional seven supercars to choose from.
Finally he mentioned Battlefield 3, which will come with a copy of Battlefield 1943 for PS3 owners.
The Main Event
While all the games and gimmicks from Sony were nice, the real heart of the press event revolved around the PSP’s successor, the device that we have known under the working title of NGP. The first matter of business was the naming. The device will officially be known as the Vita (vee-ta). That wasn’t much of a surprise as Sony accidentally leaked it a while back, but it was still nice to see the confirmation.
The specs of the Vita have been available for a while now, and the technical side was hardly mentioned. There were three main points discussed regarding the Vita—cloud based storage, cross platform compatibility, and content sharing.
The cloud based storage and cross platforming were highlighted with a game that is being developed under the working title of Ruin. It is an interesting game that emphasizes social interactions, but it is still months if not years away. The important thing was the cloud storage mixed with the cross platform compatibility. The demo on the Vita was saved to a cloud system. It was then loaded to a PS3 and the game continued exactly where it left off. The graphics of the Vita are solid—right around PS2 at the moment—but the game has the ability to upgrade itself and play like a PS3 game. Expect a lot of Vita games to follow suit.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss was the highlight of the Vita lineup. A gameplay demo showed the possibilities of merging the touchscreen with the buttons, something that seems ideal for Uncharted. One example had Nathan Drake climbing ledges. You could do the traditional jumps with the buttons, or you could touch the ledge you want to move to on the touchscreen and Nathan would react and go to it. The same was true for melee combat, which is handled with times button prompts handled on the touchscreen.
Next up was ModNation Racers, which will allow you to design a course using the touchscreen, then share it to anyone on PS3 or Vita–the opposite is also true and you also download PS3 tracks for the Vita. After that came a new Little Big Planet for the Vita, which will take some content from the PS3, and allow you to create your own to customize it.
Then came something of a surprise. The often discussed Street Fighter X Tekken (the X is called Cross) was then shown off for the PS3, and a new character was introduced for the console version—Cole from inFamous 2. Sony then announced that the game would also be coming to the Vita.
So far 80 titles are said to be in development from all the major publishers. Two models are on the way, one with wi-fi and the other with 3G. It was announced that the Vita would be available on the nation’s fastest wireless carrier–and it was something of a surprise when that was followed by an AT&T logo, which led to some awkward laughter. No word on how the pricing plans will be structured.
To end the show, The Vita’s pricing was announced. The wi-fi version will run $249, while the 3G will cost $299. Both will be released this holiday season.
Conclusion
Sony did exactly what they needed to by finally releasing the name and pricing on the Vita. The numerous leaks over the last few weeks stole some of the thunder, as did the bad taste many were left with following the PSN outage. It would have been interesting to see how they would have reacted if E3 were last month while the network was out. Addressing the situation immediately was the best move, and it got the elephant out of the room—or at least pointed it out and recognized it.
The exclusive games listed were a little softer than usual, and oddly Twisted Metal—which was on display to play after the event—was not mentioned at all. But with Uncharted 3 on the way and inFamous 2 due out this week, maybe it wasn’t necessary.
The emphasis on Move and 3D wasn’t surprising, and some of the upcoming games look great, but whether or not they can convince people to purchase the Move is the real question.
All in all, Sony had a strong showing, thanks mainly to the Vita. The price point was the biggest shock. The hardware is incredibly powerful for a handheld device, especially compared to the Nintendo 3DS, which costs the same. Odds are Sony will be taking a loss on each Vita, just as they did with the PS3. It is a gamble, but it is one that Sony is willing to take. And if the Vita can live up to the promise it shows, maybe it isn’t a gamble at all.
After all the reveals at Sony, all the new games, all the info and new hardware, there is just one burning question that has yet to be answered: where is Kevin Butler?
