GDC - Sony Keynote

In San Jose, the first big keynote finished up delivery about twenty minutes ago. Phil Harrison from Sony laid out some of the future plans the company has for the games industry on the whole. The PS3 featured heavily, of course, but new announcements centered on the PlayStation Network and online functionality. Read on for my take on Sony's chance on the big stage, here at the Game Developer's Conference 2006. Update: 03/22 21:57 GMT by Z : Fixed some typos. I was typing fast and was already late for the Ron Moore Keynote. Additional views on the event can be seen at the Wonderland blog and Joystiq, with Kotaku offering impressions from the Q&A that followed.

Sitting in the Civic Auditorium before the event starts, it's a blur of noise (Weezer, etc.) and lights. The standup at the front with PS3, PS2, and PSP shells is getting a lot of photo attention from and endless stream of journalists. There seems to be some sort of dress code that I'm unaware of, seeing the number of bald black shirt-wearers out there. I'm flanked by the Joystiq and Kotaku editors, and despite the bad feelings you might expect there has so far been no bloodshed. There's no WiFi connection in here, though, so at the moment we're fairly useless as far as commentators go.

To be honest, I'm not really anticipating anything all that exciting being announced here. The big announcement (the delay) is already out there. There are no plans to have a playable version of the PS3 on the show floor. If there are any meaty announcements made, they're likely to revolve around games for the console. Even then, my hopes aren't that high.

Jamil was just introduced, and offers up the idea that the keynote will 'demystify the next generation of consoles'. Phil Harrison walks out, and offers up the idea of 'going beyond the box'.

The PS2 Report Card:

• 1m units hardware
• 1b units software
• 632 titles
• overall market, 60% ownership
• some markets over 85%

PS1 as a hardware format has had a twelve year lifecycle, going far beyond the five year lifespan analysts predicted. PS2 will continue to be a significant force well into 2010. They're committed to supporting their current-gen system for some time to come.

David Jaffe is introduced. The PS2 is nice, but it's 'Incapable of rendering 3-way sex scenes in realtime.' They're going to be doing AAA games on the PS2 for some time to come. God of War 2 will be available for play at E3. They show a clip from the game, which features a ton of the super-violent finishing moves we saw in the last game. At one point Kratos walks up a cyclops' chest with his blades, and then reaches into his eye socket to wrench his seeing organ free. Another clip shows the God of War slicing the wings from a griffon before leaping into the sky. Promises of more to come at E3.

PSP is their fastest growing format. They're lowering the prices on PSP dev tools, having shipped over thousands worldwide. Internet browser will be a focus, with a Flash functionality. A video camera is also upcoming, for a VOIP videophone/Wifi videophone. He hopes 'communication-based games' also becomes a powerful part of the PSP story. GPS receiver is also upcoming. He's hoping for some geocaching-style games, along with the more obvious uses. The camera and GPS are both going to be coming out in the fall, around late Sept/Early Oct.

E-Distribution. Going to be a download from a content server onto a MemoryStick. They're going to be offering PS1 content from an archive server, in addition to new games. The PS3 will also be interoperable with the PSP. PSP can be used as a media browser for content on the PS3 via wifi and USB.

Another new PSP Game, Loco Roco. Wow. Crack-addled. Some sort of blue balloon guy that rolls around...sort of like Gish? It stretches shape and moves around, sometimes budding off into multiple creatures in a side-scrolling format. Coming out this Summer.

PS3! An Apology with Ducks. A new 'duck' demo. This one is is underwater, with thousands of fish simulated in realtime (procedural animation). Lots of schooling behaivor. It looks nice, I guess. He goes on to talk about basic features.

They include:

• Full PS2 backwards compatibily
• Full Blu-Ray Support
• Legacy SD to full HD support
• Latest HDMI
• Broadband Network Connection
• Wireless Connection
• HDD Standard

They claim a November 2006 launch again. Production capacity is supposed to ramp up faster than previous. 1M/month at start. Lots of middleware companies already onboard, from Alias to Havok to Epic to IGN/Gamespy. He discusses some of the additional compiler tech coming up, much of which will be out by June. Hardware for devs will be around in time for E3, with more afterwards.

He introduces some work from Ninja to show off ragdoll physics in a soldier man demo. They drop in a ton of soldier guys (over 1000), and then set off an explosion. Bodies fly, and bounce off of each other with appropriate screams. Laughs from the crowd.

Simon Hobbs from SCEE london, to show off a vehicle demo. Lots of shiny shaders and such. Still looks kinda jaggy to me, but then it's a demo. They shoot up the car, to show off the destruction of the model. It convincingly deconstructs, the hood popping open to show us the engine. It's not all that attractive, but speaks well to the physics of the console.

Blue-Ray. Some discussion of the ratio of content on the disc to memory in the system. A lot of discussion on the need for more space, given the amount of content going into new games. (graphics, performace, sounds, localizations). Can offer the publisher the chance to make one disc for all markets. They show a demo of the London from Getaway Future, a demo from back at the last E3. They 'need' Blu-Ray' in order to get all the sound and content onto the disc.

Another demo. This one's actually a game, but they want to focus on the tech. Dylan Jobe, producer of the Warhawk title. A hovering jet, an aircraft shooter title. They're using the term 'ambient warfare' to describe the general chaos and background fighting in the middle of a battlefield. Not only do they have that, but they render the clouds, waves, and light in realtime. Software rendering and Hardware rendering combine to offer up the shiny. Everything is anti-aliased and displayed in HD. Nothing is written in assembly, everything is done via higher level access to the PS3 chip. He promises that there will be a playable demo at E3 of the title. So...at least one then.

PlayStation Network Platform (not the final name). It's going to focus on Content, Communication, Community, and Commerce. Going to start with PS3 launch, basic service free. 'Open internet' business philosophy. Worldwide network and launch, co-designed by SOE. They'll provide all the basics. 3rd party servers can be made and connected to the network (MMOGs) if they're so inclined. Basic community services - account creation, lobby and matching, score/ranking, video/voice chat/text chat, friends lists and avatars. Shops to sell online content, both in and out of games. PS3 HDD can hold this downloaded material, and games can be launched directly. No Discs! Subscriptions, micropayments, etc. are all available. Next week, the SDK is heading to devs. End of June, the complete server-side will be available to devs, with September offering the final environment.

Formula 1 offering, another Demo. Video chat window overlaid over the game. Smack talk your friends while you play, with gestures, I guess. Email and friends can be accessed in the game. Invites to other games from within another game. The shop is also available in games, purchasing new cars/new tracks. The style of the shop can be adapted to the game, for a more integrated experience.

Yet another demo, for the title Motor Storm. Some folks from the developers, driving the car around kicking up dirt and making trails in the ground as it goes. Lots of complex geometry, along with stuff like visible welds on the vehicle frame. Persistent deformation of the gameworld, presenting gameplay challenges depending on the game involved. They'll be offering up a lot more at E3.

Another demo, CEO of Insomniac Ted Price. An internal demo of Resistance: Call of Man. Typical console FPS, with headcrabs and whatnot. They offer up more AI at a time, lots of cute physics stuff (nailbombs, black hole generator). Another title that will be shown in more depth at E3. 'Why they're working on the PS3'. Superior firepower, he sez. Blue Ray and the SPUs have been the most exciting things they've had to work with. Lots of room for content, lots of processing power, lots of room for stuff they've never been able to do before. The seven SPUs allow for a lot of extra stuff load balanced to the other processors. All that parallel processing and content == better games.

A 'sneak peak', a noninteractive demo for ooo something shiny. A future-tech world, lots of stuff going on in the background. Fifth element's flying car city. Has an art-deco looks almost like the buildings of Myst. Moving through the city high above, and then diving down into the misty depths of the city. Robots walking past, one some mission or other. Ratchet and Clank. This is the new Ratchet game. Looks pretty good.

Today. We make content for discs in stores. It's what the industry has done for 25 years. Creating network and communities of gamers. Fundamental shift in the planning, creation, production, and management of games. Future GDCs will be focused on network-based business as opposed to disc-based businesses. Revenue streams will be more complicated. Besides prepackaged media, there's also downloadable content, episodic content, in-game advertising (booo!), SOCOM 3 (39 Million hours of online play). Lots of commercial opportunity for the industry. Subcriptions also a source of income. (WoW bigger than Ireland) Mobile gaming as a possible addition to the network. Game object auctions (no comment on that), but yeah. Merchandising. Gotta sell those T-shirts. The Wheel of Fortune.

Building direct relationships with the consumer is their new big things. They're introducing an initiative for online content creation. e-Distribution is the key. www.playstation.com/beyond/
Live now, a place where devs and content creators can connect with Sony to do online stuff for the PlayStation Network.

Innovation grows the market -

• SingStar 4 million units in 2 years
• Eyetoy, 9 million in 3 years
• Buzz, 2 million in six months.

Over 4 million units of SingStar in EU. Ultra-localization of the game for new users, with regionally appropriate songs and language. What they're doing with Singstar to move to the next level. downloading a song, video/photos of singing parties, all online. That's the impressions right off. I'm off to the Ron Moore keynote, more on this event in the day's synopsis.

100M

Might want to edit that copy to show that the total number of PS2s sold is 100M and not 1M.

One more thing...

For a standard keynote summary, this is missing important details. A few questions:
- What colour was his turteneck?
- What colour were his jeans?
- What was the "one more thing?"

And Sony wonders why it has problems

David Jaffe is introduced. The PS2 is nice, but it's 'Incapable of rendering 3-way sex scenes in realtime.'

You would think that the "hot coffee" scandal would have taught people a lesson. That congressmen like to take notice of such statements because it easy fodder for them to use to please their red-state supporters.

Joke or not, I am surprised that Sony would allow such a statement be made that represents their future product/gaming platform.

Re:And Sony wonders why it has problems

Hmm... parent comment was modded as Troll:

The question is, "Why, exactly, does she have Blue state supporters? Or any supporters, anywhere, at all?"

It's not a Troll, because first of all, this based on what I actually believe. Trolling is when you string people along with a fake comment because you want to watch them squirm. You say something that you don't believe that will get people riled up.

I actually think that the person who modded it Troll is a Democrat who figures I'm an evil Republican who hates Hillary Clinton because I'm an evil Republican. Actually, that's not true. I can't imagine voting for a Republican, I want to vote for a peace candidate and a civil liberties candidate. Hillary Clinton is pro-war and anti-civil liberties, so why are the Democrats pushing her? If the Republicans decide to throw the next election by putting up the worst campaigner they can find, she might squeak in.

I really want to understand the logic of her candidacy among ordinary people like the kind of people who moderate Slashdot. Give me a list of positive accomplishments she's done as Senator. A stirring speech opposing the War in Iraq or the Bush administrations massive infringement on our civil liberties something. If you are a Hillary Clinton supporter, understand that I'm either going to vote for a third party candidate or the Democratic candidate in the next election. Why should I vote for her?

Price?

What I really want to know is the price. How much is the PS3 going to cost? Same for Nintendo Revolution.

That way I can plan my budget and buy instant noddles in bulk.

Course, I know some fanboys who'd be willing to sign over a blank check to Sony Corp.

ARGHH!

"Innovation grows the market"

It does no such thing!

PS3 and Xbox

I'm not sure if this is on topic, but the article above mentioned the life expectancy of the PS1 ans being 12 years, and I have heard in the past that Sony wants PS2 to last at least as long, and for the PS3 to have somewhere around 15 year lifespan. This is interesting when you consider the Microsoft strategy of actually shortening the linfespan of their hardware. Now granted, Microsoft is trying to leapfrog Sony by having shorter life-cycles on the hardware, but that brings up an interesting question. Is the sony strategy of continuing support for the older hardwarte and making all their hardware backward compatable a better strategy then the mocrosoft strategy of killing a console after 4 years and releasing new hardware thats not fully backwards compatable? Could the low sales of xbox360 in japan be indicative of people's apprehension of the prospect of having hardware that costs $400 and has support for only 4 years?

Re:PS3 and Xbox

I think the low sales of the 360 in Japan really has to do with the lack of Japanese RPGs on the system. Anything with the name "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" are usually big sellers. I imagine MS has been working with Square-Enix on getting more titles to the 360. They've already started with FFXI, but that's been out for years and I can't really see it being a big seller. But its a start. Having Mistwalker Studios [ign.com] on board though, could be big. We'll just have to see how those games turn out.

That's an... interesting example

The PS2 is nice, but it's 'incapable of rendering 3-way sex scenes in realtime.'

Low-polygon models have, um, nice personalities. But I'm pretty sure a PS2 can render a couple of paper bags in realtime.

The PS3 does everything!

We are not going to show you anything, but trust us, it does everything.

It is odd to think that it has been 6 months since the first playable Revolution demos.

Spore plz, k thx

Heh all I want to hear about from GDC is if there was a Spore update and when I can buy it :)

PSP

They're lowering the prices on PSP dev tools

How about lowering the price on the frickin' PSP? I might consider getting one if it wasn't still two-thirds the price of an Xbox 360 in the UK! Get it down to the price of a DS and they might have another buyer...

So... uh, yeah...

The PS2 is nice, but it's 'Incapable of rendering 3-way sex scenes in realtime.'

So... what? Uh, yeah, does that mean we can look forward to Hot Coffee: Prostitutes of Rockstar?

You'd run a coffee store as a front for a brothel. Your purpose in the game is to lure in customers who are looking for "Hot Coffee". You tell them "We only sell lattes up here, you have to go to the back for Hot Coffee". You are also responsible for keeping the girls STD free, recruiting more whores, and making sure they don't run away to the cops. You must also budget money, for actually keeping up the coffee store front (making sure to keep prices artificially high so as to starve off a large crowd) and paying off any detectives who might come your way (or hiring goons to scare them off if they don't like cash.)

You win the game when you have control over all brothels in the game and your coffee store also turns a profit. Once you reach a certain point, you can start up a porn creation company, and use that as another front by letting people buy their way into porn shoot.

...please don't turn that into a game.

Nothing really new except confirming rumors

Hmm, it doesn't look like there's really any new information, other than confirming a bunch of rumors that have already surfaced. Yes, there's a delay. Yes, they're working on an online service. Yes, more dev kits should be coming out. Yes, there are a lot of developers on board.

I think what most people are really interested in now is the price. I would imagine that will be announced at E3.

A piece of value

Other than the "we are going to copy x-box live, except that we are doing it with SOE so it will be MMORPGtastic is some way", the only thing I found of value in those announcements concerning the PS3 was about the harddrive. Although they did not talk about "units" or "sku's" or show anything in real terms out there, the topics they went over leaned heavily on downloaded content. I was personally afraid that they were going the way the 360 did with the 2 product debacle. If I preorder a PS3, I want the damn system. I do not want some crimpled gimp that requires future upgrades to act as the actual product I bought. It was about 5 months before the 360's release that they started talking about having a "core/premium" setup. Hopefully Sony avoids this misstep. If they want my money, they better not try and thrust a memory card on me again...

uhhhhh

They 'need' Blu-Ray' in order to get all the sound and content onto the disc.

uhh...so someone called Sony hasn't heard of compression?

now I know that huge compression can bog down a console, but if the PS3 is SOOO powerful it should be fine with 9GB of space!

Come on, sony's just making all these excuses about next-gen games as to why they need power overkill, DRMed blu-ray, and all the other junk that customers "demand."

I'll say...

"Lots of schooling behaivor." Yeah, this guy could use some schooling behaivor himself.

Insomniac Put Me To Sleep

Was it just me, or did the two demos from Insomniac seem a little ... underwhelming? I don't know, but I was expecting something more than a standard FPS and the speaker just seemed a little too geeked out about being able to shoot different types of weapons...

Anyway, I thought the keynote was pretty good - it shows where Sony expects to expand its revenue streams, and the ideas behind Sony Networking platform seem like a good idea to me, though there were no details on how third party game servers will be able to offer their services (i.e. will they have to pay some type of monthly fee to be on the "Sony open internet" ?

..parallel processing and content == better games

Wow. Just wow. You know, we're all aware that Sony's marketing really wants us to believe that tripe, but it just seems so cynical to see it written out so openly.

Did they really say those words? Out loud, in front of a live audience?

Parallel processing and content == potentially better graphics, sound, animation, physics, etc. Sure. We like all that.

But it takes good ideas to make good games. Nothing more, nothing less.

Pseudo-interactive sequences where psychotic he-men gouge the eyes and wings off of mythologic creatures? Nailbombs? Please. These are icing (flavoured to taste - or lack thereof). What new ideas do you guys have?

D.

Scripted?

Were any of the demos controlled in real-time with an actual controller by the individual on stage or were they all just scripted fly-throughs(3dmark style)?

Linux on a hard disk

I'd like to have heard more about them putting Linux on a hard disk.

"We're positioning the PS3 as a supercomputer", he says, "But people won't recognize it as a computer unless we call it a computer, so we're going to run an OS on it. In fact, the Cell can run multiple OSes. In order to run the OSes, we need a hard disk. So in order to declare that the PS3 is a computer, I think we'll have [the hard disk] preinstalled with Linux as a bonus.

from http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identi ferID=8265&action=flatview [linuxgames.com]

Nice Box

It's enough that it has a cell processor, blu-ray drive, HDMI out, HD capable video, 60G hard drive and comes with Linux to be worth $500 - $600 to me.

  Damn cheap VDR platform.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/ 22/1554210 [slashdot.org]

    PenGun
  Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

"The physics of the console"???

but speaks well to the physics of the console

What, like how heavy it is, how it bounces when you drop it? How does a physics demo show anything about the 'physics of the console'... it's just using processing power to drive its own physics system... it's not the physics of the system it's the physics of the coders...

Sure, the processing power of the system allows more physics to be used without a performance hit, but I'm sure the same could be shown on the XBOX 360... or maybe even the revolution.

Math Skills?

# 1m units hardware
# 1b units software

Doesn't equate to 1,000 titles sold per PS2 sold? Or am I reading that wrong? 'Cause with less than 1,000 titles for sale and most of those titles not worth buying I can't imagine the average PS2 owner has 100 titles to their name, let a lone 1,000.

Why isn't SingStar available in the US?

Darn it, I already own 2-4 of Karaoke Revolution. Disc 1 seems to be out of print (why?) with insane ebay prices.

What isn't Sony release SingStar in the US?

...Final Name, C4?

"PlayStation Network Platform (not the final name). It's going to focus on Content, Communication, Community, and Commerce." ... So, Sony is relying on C4 to blow away the competition?

Downloading full games

Microsoft and Sony keep talking about this but I honestly still don't think it's going to be possible for at least another five years.

The reason is not storage or ability to do that but more the restrictions imposed by ISPs, etc. Take a typical ISP in the UK - I'm with one that claims "unlimited" bandwidth. Rubbish. There are clauses that state that if I am extremely bullish over downloading then my connection speeds will be crippled.

Some are even worse. Take BT for example - They claim a fast 2MB connection but only allow 1GB of download per month. That's a pathetic amount of data for a month. Imagine downloading a few albums from iTunes, a demo of the latest PC game and throw in some random surfing. You'd exhaust it within a couple of weeks if not sooner.

And can I even be bothered to download a game from the internet?! I don't like leaving a computer on when I'm at work or asleep so I would only have a few hours to download it in the evening or on the weekend. At that point I may as well pick up the disc from a store. No fuss and I even have a "backup" copy now!

One of the comments that struck me

David Jaffe is introduced. The PS2 is nice, but it's 'Incapable of rendering 3-way sex scenes in realtime.' They're going to be doing AAA games on the PS2 for some time to come.

Um.

Ah.

So that's why they built it.

At least they're admitting it.

Any truth to the rumor that MSFT Vista is being held back so that it can support Blu-Ray too? Or is it just the DRM?

Start JRPG, walk away for a month...you've won

A lot of discussion on the need for more space, given the amount of content going into new games. (graphics, performace, sounds, localizations).

In other words: "All of our Japanese developers are obsessed with making you sit through 60 hours of unskippable cut-scenes."

But what about the Killzone 2 demo?

Come on, isn't this the real question that we want answered?

And again...

The sheer apathy of this article, and sarcasm shows Zonks colours again. If this wre and Xbox presentation he would have been lauding every little bit of gfx he saw. I find the commentry around the game demonstrations as the most hilarious I have read - Obviously he wasnt in the same room as the Kokatu and Digg editors as he claimed, they posted quite different overviews.

Get off your anti Sony spooge box Zonk.. its pretty sad.

HDD confirmed? No, says Q&A!

According to the Q&A session, covered on IGN, etc, Phil Harrison could NOT confirm that a 60G HD would be standard.

Harrison answered that it will undoubtedly be a key component of the system and that developers should program titles assuming that the drive is there, but being that his role is more software-oriented than hardware, he couldn't give a definitive answer as to whether or not it will be in the box. He says that we, and even he, should know for sure at this year's E3.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/697/697725p1.html [ign.com]

Boomerang gone and not to return!

Sony also confirmed [spong.com] that the controller dubbed 'the boomerang' will not be the final version of the controller. Phew - thank goodness for that!

I think TISM said it best.....

everyone else has had more secks than me....

OOOOH OOOOH OOOOOOOOOH!!

Re:Playing into Jack's hands

I agree with you. Mortal Kombat was a great game, but it's a one-off. It was interesting because it was new and different in addition to being gory. Then everyone got on the bandwagon and the wheels fell off. The same thing has happened with FPS's of late. It'll all cycle as people only buy the games they actually like.

Re:3-ways

That comment was made when Jaffe came out on stage. Having played through 'God of War', I would have to say that the threesome commented about takes place in the first 10 minutes of 'God of War' and not 'GTA:SA'.

Try the game again, and see how many vases you can shake...