PS3 Press Event

OK, so here’s my brain dump from last night’s PS3 press event at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.  Overall, a fairly benign presentation with a few highlights.  

I’ll begin with the price, which was saved for the end of the event. You’re looking at two system levels in the U.S. to launch on Nov. 17, a 20GB version at $499 and a 60GB version at $599.  And if you’re gonna get a PS3, get the $599 cause it comes with all the good stuff (support for flash memory, built-in wireless connectivity, HDMI support, wireless controller).  For the extra Benjamin, the upper class version comes with all the stuff you’d expect-at the entry price I don’t know why Sony is even offering the 20GB system.  But to put it in perspective, Sony is offering the PS3 in Japan at 59,990 yen in Japan for the 20GB version, and leaving it up to retailers to set the price for the 60GB version.  OUCH.  Europe gets the PS3 for 499 and 599 Euros for the 20 and 60GB systems respectively.

The biggest surprise to me at the event was the motion-sensing controller.   Sony redesigned the controller from the deadly boomerang configuration to the tried and true PS2 outer structure, but apparently the inside is beefed up with a combination of gyroscopes and accelerometers (whatever those are) to provide “6 degrees of freedom” according to Phil Harrison, president of Sony’s worldwide development studios.  They demoed it on a game called WarHawk, which reminded me of the 3D version of Defender by Midway on the PS2, where you could control the direction of your aircraft by tilting the controller rather than directing with the analog sticks.  It’s got some potential, but they also took out the force feedback, as they claimed it interfered with the tilt sensors.

The PS3 will ship with a removable hard drive in every box, 20GB or 60GB as mentioned above.  Sony claims it will support backwards compatibility through both previous generations of PSone and PS2.  They showed some clever PSP interactivity with the PS3, using the portable to act as a supplemental screen showing additional information and being used as a rearview mirror in a racing demo.  Sony is planning a worldwide launch beginning in Japan on Nov. 8, hitting the rest of the world Nov. 17.  Here’s the biggest load of crap I heard last night-Sony plans on having 2 million units shipped for the launch window period and 4 million shipped by Dec 31, 2006, and then a total of 6 million by the end of March 2007.  I’ll believe that when I see it.

During the presentation Sony showed 6 playable demos. They let people play the demos at the end of the presentation. They were, in order of impressiveness:
Heavenly Sword (sweet looking fighter game? I don’t know what genre this is)
WarHawk (cool control scheme)
GranTurismo HD (some really good looking trees)
Sonic the HedgeHog (meh)
Genji II (real-time weapon/character changes)
Resistance-Fall of Man (where you fight Space Alien Nazis in 1951 England)
Poll Position (they actually didn’t have a title for this formula 1 racing game)

They also showed several non-playable demos from games such as:
LAIR
Getaway
Afrika
Hotshots Everybody’s Golf
Monster Kingdom
Eight Days
Naughty Dog (again, no title, but looks like a modern Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider with a male hero)
Final Fantasy 13 (return of the gunblade)
Metal Gear Solid 4-Guns of the Patriots

Metal Gear Solid was the only game that got any real response from the audience.  I was surprised at how tame the whole event was.  There was no real applause until Final Fantasy 13 and no real cheering until MGS4 showed up.  I think Sony’s got an uphill battle, but MSG4 looked like it could push units out the door on its own, easy.

One thing really pissed me off about the future of console gaming, and it concerns the digital distribution of content.  We all know it’s coming, and Sony looks to be ready to rake us all over the coals with it.  They didn’t say much about the online service, but it looked an awful like XBL.  Basic services are said to be free-but they didn’t mention anything about playing with others and showed some really disturbing trends of buying simple weapon upgrades, levels, and color schemes for aircraft in the game WarHawk.  I hate to say it, but I’m predicting now that we are coming to the end of “unlockable” secrets and easter eggs in games.  Everything extra is going to be downloadable and for a price.  [ENTER SARCASM] New costumes for your character in Resident Evil 5, no worries, you don’t even have to beat the game, you can start out with alternate attire for the low, low price of $1.99 per set, payable via the new Sony Card that comes in $50 increments [EXIT SARCASM].  I think I’m going to be sick.

That’s really all Sony ponied up with. There were a couple of personal surprises I found as I observed the media crowd last night.  There were A LOT of media from the European contingent.  I was expecting a large Asian presence, but the number of reps from French/German/Spanish speaking countries surprised me.  Also, it’s no wonder the world has an image of fat, lazy kids being the stereotypical videogame players.  Sony had enough junk food to stuff a rhino.  There were a bunch of firefighters inside the event, and I’m convinced they needed them on hand not to watch for fire hazards, but to be there to start EMS care if somebody went down from a heart attack after eating.

So that about sums it up. If I get anything good at E3 this week, Ill post again later.