Sony Press Conference Wrap-Up, What We Saw

Sony, the second of the big three to have their “media briefing” had an incredible showing last night. They opened up with a dubstep song playing over a long montage, showcasing some of the best PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable games of last year. Jack Tretton, President and CEO of SCEA, came out and gave a heartfelt apology to all of the consumers and developers who were affected by the PlayStation Network fiasco. He went on to reassure everyone that despite that incident “the PlayStation brand is stronger than ever.” These words came on the heels of the announcement of another PlayStation partnership with movie streaming service Cinema Now.

After that Sony brought out arguably their biggest guns to start off in the form of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. We got a demo of the gameplay taking place on a constantly rocking ship in the middle of the ocean. We got to see our hero Nathan Drake sneak around this ship and take out guards, only to be captured, only to escape, blowing a hole in the ship in the process, leaving him to escape this ship. All of that happened in the span of five minutes and it was absolutely breathtaking to see. In addition to that awesome gameplay we got a new trailer and the announcement of a special deal with Subway where people will be able to get early access to the games entire multiplayer mode earlier. This deal starts in October.

Next up Marcus Smith of Insomniac came out to show off Resistance 3, we got a nice demo of the game, showing off some of the staple the series is known for. We saw unique weapons, tons of enemies, and one ginormous monster that attempted to crush our hero Joseph Capelli. Resistance will also be following Killzone 3 and get a bundle featuring the PlayStation Move Sharpshooter. This bundle will feature a Move controller, the Sharpshooter accessory, a PlayStation Eye camera, and a copy of the game, it will retail for $149.99.

It wouldn’t be Sony without some 3D push, and to the surprise of myself (and many others) they impressed. First off they showed of the still long awaited Team ICO collection, and the newly announced God of War Origins Collection, which is both of the PSP games remastered and released for the PS3. Both of these games will also be playable in full 3D. Now if you’re like me the buy-in price for 3D is still to much for what you get. Well Sony wants to change that by offering a rather tempting new package. They showed off their brand new PlayStation branded 3D HD TV. This 24” TV is fully HD and has 3D capabilities, perhaps the coolest part of this set though is that when it plays games split screen both players are able to see the game in full screen. This TV will be coming in a bundle set, the bundle will include the TV, a 6 foot HDMI cable, a copy of Resistance 3, and a pair of 3D glasses and will retail for $499.99 with separate pairs of the glasses running $69.99. Overall a pretty appealing package which may actually move some 3D tech into homes (I know it will into mine).

Move was shown off in a few games as to be expected. NBA 2K12 will use the PS Move, which was shown off by none other than LA Laker Kobe Bryant. A new Move game, Medieval Moves was shown off. We did get a good meme out of this in the form of “great job Jeremy,” but the game itself looks rather sluggish and unenjoyable. LittleBigPlanet 2 did also get a showing for the Move section, the game will get even more Move support, as well as levels built by and meant for use with the Move controller.

We got to see a lot more games, Starhawk was shown off and looked spectacular. Though we saw very little of it we do know it will be out early 2012. Dust 514 is a first person shooter set in the EVE online universe other than that we don’t know much. The game that stole the show though (for me) was Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, sometime in 2012, I’m happy.

Then we got to see more of Bioshock: Infinite. Ken Levine, head honcho at Irrational Games came out and gave a quick talk about how motion controls like the PlayStation Move can add to the core of games without sacrificing that core experience we all cherish. It seems that having said that Bioshock: Infinite for the PS3 will have some kind of Move support, we’ll also be getting some type of Bioshock game on a handheld.

Sony also strutted their console exclusives they’ll have for some of the major upcoming releases. Starting with the previously mentioned Bioshock: Infinite which will have a copy of the original Bioshock on disc. Saints Row 3 will have an exclusive multiplayer mode on the PS3. The newly announced Star Trek game will have Move support and even get a phaser shaped Move controller. The exclusiveness continues into everyone’s favorite snowboarding game SSX, which will get exclusive races down the famous Mt. Fuji. Need for Speed the Run will get exclusive cars, and the PS3 version of Battlefield 3 will have a copy of last years downloadable darling Battlefield 1943.

Then we finally got what we’d all been waiting to see the NGP, or should I say the PlayStation Vita. Yes Sony’s new handheld came out guns blazing, starting with a name, PlayStation Vita (Latin for life.) Kaz Hirai, executive deputy president of Sony came out to show off the new hardware and make some announcements.

We got to see a smattering of games Uncharted: Golden Abyss was shown off, and as advertised it looked like a PS3 game running on a handheld. Touch controls were shown off as was just standard control, both seemed to work very well especially now that two analog sticks are present. Ruin an RPG for the PlayStation Vita was shown off, the most interesting part of Ruin was its ability to change play from your Vita to your PS3 seamlessly without skipping a beat, which is similar to Hideo Kojima’s new transfarring technology. We got to see LittleBigPlanet and Modnation Racers running on the Vita. As the two user created content games it was very reassuring to hear that all the content that has already been created for these two games on PS3 and PSP will be available on the Vita versions. Each one also showed off touch controls which were used for both playing and creating and worked very smoothly and seemed fun to use. We finally got to see Street Fighter X Tekken running on the Vita, it was smooth and looked almost exactly as good as its PS3 counterpart. Oh and Cole from inFamous will be an exclusive to the Vita version.

The big news we were waiting for was the price and the release date. The PlayStation Vita will be released by Holiday season of this year, it will retail at $249.99 for the WiFi only version and $299.99 for the WiFI + 3G version. The 3G will be run through AT&T, which gained audible groans and a few boos at the conference. Despite that though the Vita looks incredible to say the least, and has (for this guy at least) warranted a day one purchase.

Sony really brought their A-Game this year. Showing off a smattering of great games and a brand new piece of impressive looking hardware. Many people are considering them the winners of E3 this year. What do you all think, did Sony win you over?