Sony Displays New PSP, Polished Games At E3

Sony had a lot to prove coming into this event, and kicked off on a high note. The PlayStation 2 is still selling units, and the PSP's numbers are apparently up as well. They followed that with the news of a new version of the PlayStation Portable. It's slimmer, lighter, has a longer battery life, and the ability to connect directly to your television to display video and games. There was a good deal of discussion about upcoming PSP titles, some of which are connected to a PSP bundle. Pushing out the PS3, they show several PlayStation Store titles, included the fascinating-looking Echochrome . Moving onto the Home service they discussed cellphone and website tie-ins to the Home service, as well as the ability to launch games from directly within the Home environment. Referencing the price cut, they reveal sales have already gone up. NCSoft, Epic, and Ubisoft are all referenced as heavy backers of the PlayStation, with a tantalizing statement suggesting that user-created mods for Unreal Tournament will be coming to the console via the Playstation Network. A lengthy Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer and a statement that the game is only for the PS3 (still to be determined), due early in 2008, cap off the third-party section. First-party titles show all of the highlights of Sony's portfolio with the LittleBigPlanet trailer emphasizing creation rather than play, and their Heavenly Sword highlight showcasing the game's story for the first time. A new sandbox title with a morality component was announced, InFamous, as was a new chapter in the Gran Turismo series. The press conference wrapped with a gripping trailer for Killzone 2, completely running in real-time.

Crush

I am highly pissed that Crush is only available for the PSP. We finally get an imaginative, mind stretching game, and it's for that thing.

Re:Crush

And I'm pissed that I can only play Zelda on Nintendo products and Halo on Microsoft products...

Really real-time?

I hope it's running in real real-time and not just real time like the previous trailer at last year's E3. Because as real as time was at the time, the demo wasn't very real, just based on what they believed would be real.. at the time.

Did anyone see MGS4 Gameplay?

Ok, not to sound trollish, but was anyone anywhere playing MGS4? Was there a HUD on screen at any time?

Everything I've seen has been FMV trailers, and though they DO look great... So did the FMV in Final Fantasy VII...

Pics of the new PSP

Engadget has the photos [engadget.com]. It doesn't look that much thinner to me.

Re:Pics of the new PSP

You imported a daughter from Japan? I knew Thai girls were going cheap, but this is intriguing. Do you have a link to the online shop?

Hmph.

I was extremely disappointed that the hot chicks from the square never came over to have the turkey burgers.

AWESOME!

...as long as you're interested in FPSs, FPSs, and more FPSs (with some racing!)

But.....

Will it blend?

Light at the End of the Tunnle

I think that this year's E3 was exactly what Sony needed last year. Overall I think they showed off plenty of eye candy and a few exclusives that should help to drive sales in the coming months. The only problem is that many of these key games (MGS4 in particular) won't be coming until after the holiday season. A lot of the media and public opinion is that Sony is failing and a big holiday season for them would help to dispell some of those doubts.

What I liked most about their conference is that they focused on showcasing the games coming out on their system instead of talking about sales figures and statistics (After watching the first fifteen minutes of the Nintendo conference, I was about ready for a nap). I suppose most of that stems from not having a lot of good news on that front. I don't mind a little bit of business, but I'm really more interested in seeing the games.

Depending on how things turn out over the next few months and other games that Sony manages to add to the PS3, I might almost consider buying one now that they've dropped the price a little bit. Hopefully I'll get to learn a little more about some of the games being released before the holidays to see if it's worth purchasing one of them. It also seems as though they've done a lot to revitalize the PSP, which is also a lot more appealing.

Overall I think that they should've given me a more compelling reason to puchase one of these during the holiday season or right now, but I think with the recent price drop and some of the good news from E3 that sales should pick up a little in the following weeks. If nothing else at least Sony has managed to pull its head out of its ass and get back on the right track. They still might end up like Nintendo during the GameCube era where they didn't receive a lot of support. They've still got a lot of leg work to prove to the rest of the world that they're a major contender.

2008

Did anyone else notice that everything that looked amazing had 2008 attached to it? And everything that looked with par with the 360 had 2007 attached to it?

I mean its great they finally showed off some potential but slapping 2008 on it all doesn't give me much confidence to go out and buy the console today or even this holiday season.

About time..

I always said that if they added a tv out i would probably pick one up, the 5g ipod had tv out and was released at the same time. The only argument against a tv out was that it might impact ps2 sales (since a lot of psp games are ps2 ports) but if you have a tv out the psp becomes a fairly high spec portable media machine, thats how most people will use it I think.

UMD: Sony's Universe vs Our Discs

Does the new PSP still use the orwellian-named Universal Media Disc [wikipedia.org]", that is compatible with nothing but the original PSP? The UMD for which there is no way for anyone but Sony to burn a disc? Or maybe they've got a miniBlu-Ray, which would be a lot cooler.

heyho

I can hear the 360 brigade and MS fan boys warming up on this thread. whooosh.

I have a PS3, I got it on day one, I love it, Resistance is a fabulous game.

Yes there are not as many games, yes it costs more - but for fucks sake it's a blu-ray player! not some piddly DVD player. At the time I got the PS3 I could not get a blu-ray player for that money. I like the machine, the geek in me admires the Cell technology. And I feel that strongly that Sony are getting a rough ride from a bunch a script kiddies and annoying teenagers. There I said it.

Sony are trying to run a business, not gain a foothold with massive loss making subsidies and oppressive leverage. I'm not saying that what MS is doing is wrong after all they are trying to run a business - but that does not mean I admire them for their business tactics.

-------

Having said that, in a few months I'll be getting a 360 for Halo 3, which looks to be a fabulous game!

Re:heyho

If Sony had wanted to release a game console, they could have done it. Nintendo clearly did. Instead, Sony wanted to release an entertainment unit for the living room. They didn't focus on games, and blu-ray doesn't have enough of a market yet to justify the R&D and advertising behind the PS3. If Sony had just concentrated on getting good games out early in the lifespan of the console they would never be in this mess. Now they need to scramble to get games out before the console completely sinks. It's great that you like your blu-ray player and that you like Resistance, but a generic first-person shooter and a high-def media player aren't enough to compensate for the lack of FUN.

Re:heyho

I'm glad that you like your PS3, I'm sure many people who own one have enjoyed it. But even if resistance is a great game, it's only one game, and if Sony wants $500-600 just for the console, then they're going to have to woo me with a large number of great games, or at least a handful of absolutely incredible ones.

It's also awesome that you're happy with Blu-ray, but there's plenty of evidence both in what people saying and what people are buying that shows that most people aren't particularly compelled by it(nor by HD-DVD). I don't know if it's fair to say I'm angry with Sony for pushing it so hard, but as an individual who has no-use for a Blu-ray player right now, I do think it's kind of disappointing that I'd be required to pay for one in order to play PS3 games.

Sony is getting a rough ride from all sorts of people, because they created a product that doesn't fit the market as well as they thought, they priced it well beyond what most of the market considered reasonable for a game console, and in all honesty, their executives were kind of dicks about the whole thing whenever they said anything. They fell into the same complacent trap that Nintendo did back in the day, so sure of their dominance that they could push whatever they wanted onto the consumer.

It took Nintendo a little while to get back on track, but they have, and as a result, we've got some pretty different and interesting gaming systems available. I think that not only has Sony earned some of the ire they've seen, but in the long run it will be good for the gaming industry. Even if the PS3 ends up a failure, I don't think Sony will abandon the industry, they'll hopefully take a fresh look at it, and rebuild their glory days.

Amazing!

Sales are up after a price drop!

So. The real question is this: How much higher will they be a month or so AFTER the price drop?

User generated content

The thing that excites me as a gamer, is that Sony seems to have embraced the idea of user generated content - from the ability to use user created levels in UT, to being able to create an share user generated levels in Little Big Planet, basically a cushy physics simulator.

In the link that led to talking about user generated content being less certain on the 360, that's because it would have to go through Live and Microsoft still has not worked out what they want to do there. They may yet also allow substantial user content, they just haven't done so to date with the fervor Sony has.

NCsoft?

I Wonder, why is NCsoft [ncsoft.com] a "heavy backer" for the PS3? So far they've mostly released MMORPGs for the PC...

Re:NCsoft?

I Wonder, why is NCsoft a "heavy backer" for the PS3?

Perhaps all their staff are morbidly obese?

Re:NCsoft?

I'm guessing they want to sell console games. (choices: PS2, Wii, PS3, 360)
They want to offer games that require a lot of processing power and have HD. (remaining choices: PS3, 360)
And they want to sell in volume to Asia. (remaining choice: PS3)

Killzone 2

I must admit, when I saw the CGI trailer last year I was very skeptical about whether or not they could get anywhere near it.

It's very rare that I'll watch a trailer for something with my mouth half open. The Transformers trailer and the Killzone 2 trailer had this effect on me.

I think I've watched it 5 times now and I still don't believe it's realtime, even though it is*

*it is realtime, isn't it?

Impressive and unimpressive

Sony impressed me and also failed to impress me.

PS3: Impressive. I'm glad to see they're able to showcase a lot of high class games as well as a number that are reaching out to a broader crowd. Things may take off for this system yet, though I doubt its possible for it to gain enough momentum to dominate this generation. It would at least break previous precidents if it did.

PSP: Unimpressive. I feel like Sony is trying to copy the DS Lite without understanding why the DS Lite did well. The DS Phat's key dimensional problem was its depth. There were a number of pockets incapable of holding one, and to boot it was relatively heavy. The DS Lite improved on all of these, while looking simultaneously much sleeker. The new PSP is hard to distinguish from its predecessor, which was sleek to begin with. I'll be very surprised is this causes any long-term changes in PSP sales.

The real point of the PSP

Recently, I've found that the real value of the PSP is in its non-UMD power.... namely, being able to emulate the NES, the Playstation and everything inbetween :P

The movie thing is cool too, I guess... but emulating actually good games makes up for the lack of such titles in UMD format.

Welp

They still haven't shown me any games that compel me to purchase one. There's a bunch of "well that looks cool, if I owned a PS3" but nothing to motivate me to go out and spend $500+tax on one. Maybe, like the 360, one of my roommates will be compelled to pick one up. Even Metal Gear I can wait on the system hitting $300 and the game going budget/cross platform for.

I will own a PS3 eventually(only console of a generation I *haven't* owned is an original XBox), and I plan on picking up the titles that fit that criteria as I see them, but... meh.

How it looks on a TV

PSP graphics are impressive on a small screen, but will it look good on a TV? I suspect that it wouldn't, but I don't know what Sony is planning here. I seem to recall the Game Boy Advance games looking good on TV's (via Game Boy Player), though all I've seen of that are Internet videos. Does anyone have more info?

Re:WOW

No, it's just you. Virtually the entire focus of the presentation was on the PS3 and PSP. Sony were "grasping at straws" by showing off lots of games including some new ones, Home, a new PSP and plenty more besides.

Of the 3 presentations it was by far the most interesting.

Re:WOW

What the hell are you talking about?? Sony talked about PS2 for two minutes or so, then PSP for about fifteen minutes, then Home / PSN for fifteen minutes, followed by PS3 for about an hour. They saved the best for last.

Re:It's Like The PS3 Is A Whole Gen Ahead

I don't think you seem to be watching the same thing the rest of us have. KZ2 is on par with GoW. Halo 3 has seen a graphics bump since beta. And FYI, gameplay makes or breaks a game, not graphics.

Re:Oh My Fucking God Sony

I think you misposted -- you should be at http://blog.us.playstation.com/ [playstation.com]

Re:My Thoughts from E3

The bundle with the PSP doesn't contain any UMD movies; it comes with the Family Guy Freakin' Sweet Collection [amazon.com], which is just five episodes (mind you, the best five episodes of the first three seasons.) It also comes with Daxter and a 1 GB memory stick.

The most exciting announcement about the entire conference for me was the new PSP's TV-out feature. I was disappointed that it didn't have TV-out on release several years ago, and I am very excited about it now. It's finally like a portable console, and the portability is finally a reason to actually buy UMD content. It's one of the things that is making me consider getting one someday, and the $199 bundle does seem like a great deal.

Also, Echochrome looks totally awesome. If I don't play that game soon, I think I might die.

Re:And this is interesting, why?

Because world != you. That is all.

Re:My Thoughts from E3

Somebody must have bought some Sony stock.... 'investorelite' indeed.

*Sigh* The astroturf is getting mighty tall these days.

Re:My Thoughts from E3

Have you ever actually watched a movie on your PSP?

I'm not trolling or anything, just curious. I have two UMD movies: Spider-man 2, came with my PSP, and Blade was a gift. I love both movies and have them on DVD where I've watched them many times.

I have tried to watch them on my PSP. Never got more than a half-hour into either before I shut it down.

Has anyone ever managed to watch an entire movie on a PSP?

Maybe I'm watching the wrong type of movie for that small screen.

Re:My Thoughts from E3

Have you ever actually watched a movie on your PSP?

I've watched hundred of hours of movies and TV shows on my PSP.

Air travel + PSP + movies (on a memory stick) = Heaven.

No need for a laptop in your carryon means you can "sail" through security. The instant on/off is wonderful as well. You can use it while actually standing in line. One 4Gig stick will hold an entire season of a television show plus a movie or two.

You get good battery life (a little under three hours) because it's not hitting the UMD, but for longer flights you can get: a USB battery box [thinkgeek.com] and a USB charging cable. It will suck down batteries (but this setup allows the brightest screen mode) but work like a charm. I went through 16 AA's on a 24 hour flight once.

Oh yeah, I also rest it on the treadmill in front of me while running. I've lost 10 pounds when I never had the patience before. No physical media = no skipping.

I just kick myself for waiting a year to get one. It is by far the best video player available and Sony has marketed it INCREDIBLY poorly.

Never played a UMD though. Those are a waste of money IMO.

Re:My Thoughts from E3

That anyone could mod that insightful or even take that seriously is sad.

1. 3 hours is enough for flights 1/2 way across the country (you can't have it on every single second.) I gave a very cheap way to extend battery life (because I'm a cheap ass) but for the price of a laptop I could purchase 2 additional proprietary batteries for 9 hours of battery life and still be at a third the price of a laptop.

2. You ignored the fact that I take it on a treadmill everyday. I also take it with me around town when I have to wait at the Doctors and the like. I would personally not want to take a laptop with me to either place.

3. People complain about it being too big as it is. The screen is the size it's at. That doesn't stop people from enjoying the PSP or the DS for hours at a time.

Re:My Thoughts from E3

The screen size is the same as the size of that iPhone thingy everyone is drooling over.

I keep a spare PSP battery for long flights.

Re:Oh My Fucking God Sony

If you have a PS3 this is great news well except for that nasty price drop. Ouch.
Last I heard MGS may not be exclusive to the PS3.
Until the games are on the market it is all just hype.
It is still an improvement for Sony.

Re:WOW

I think it gives them some credibility when they talk about their ten year product cycle for the PS3. If the PS2 is still receiving new games and versions of games that aren't showing up on the previous generation consoles of their competitors they can point to this and how they stand behind their product. The fact that the PS2 is outselling all other consoles short of the Wii and still has content being developed for it is amazing considering that we're over a year into the next generation.

I think you're just muck racking and naysaying, trying to proclaim the death of Sony when you don't have anything of real substance. If you want to suggest that Sony is failing at least offer something more than a shot at the success and continued viability of the PS2 as a platform.

Re:WOW

The problem is this too:

Bash Sony = Mod Up

Praise Wii = Mod Up

Baseless comments are getting too much attention. People need to stick to the moderator guidelines or stop modding up groupthink style.

No rootkit, but still no Sony love...

I didn't get the special Sony rootkit software they were offering, but I've had plenty of problems with their products and support (.. if it's still under warranty, why do I have to pay for repairs?)

I also have no plans to give Sony any money either, what's the opposite of a Sony fanboy?

Sony BMG != Sony Computer Entertainment

Title says all, unless you don't know what operator != means.

Re:Oh My Fucking God Sony

The utterly insane Killzone footage. The exclusive for PS3 MGS4. The amazing MGS4 trailer with live gameplay coming up soon. Home is looking more and more like the ultimate online system for gamers with the custom spaces for game comapanies, the streaming video, the elegant graphics, the very cool matchmaking and clan stuff. Ratchet and Clank, Lair, Little Big Planet, Folklore, Warhawk, Infamous, SOCOM Absolutely insane lineup. Absolutely insane level of graphics power in the PS3. One of the best E3 conferences ever.

I can't figure out if you're a paid astroturfer by Sony trying to make Sony look good or a paid astroturfer by Microsoft trying to make Sony look bad.

Yes, they had a good show. But keep your frickin' pants on.

MOD Parent Up?

This is just retarded, who is modding this guy flamebait and troll? Talk about abusing your mod points >_>;

Re:Can Anyone Explain How PS3 Games Look This Good

The first and more important fact is that the hardware is powerful enough on both the 360 and the PS3 that you can get more payback for good artistic direction and heavy technical investment than ever before. The 360 and the PS3 will both respond very nicely to extravagantly expensive development budgets, and the skill of the developers and artists working on the average game will probably make much more difference in the quality of the results than any differences between the hardware will.

That said, and while the 360's graphics chip is probably superior to the PS3's, the PS3 was designed to have the Cell and RSX working together in a very close fashion. Killzone 2 is being developed with a deferred renderer, in which the Cell can overlay lighting calculations on top of the rendered polygons, rather than having all of that be always done with the RSX. Lair is using the Cell to do dynamic winnowing down of the in-game geometry to present only the essential data to RSX, while continuing to animate everything with high fidelity. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is using Cell to do very ambitious dynamic animation blending on the main characters.

Between Cell and RSX, you can do awful lot on PS3, but you have to develop the games for it, and the kind of distributed programming required to harness 8 distributed processing cores (1 PPU, 6 SPU, 1 RSX) takes a lot of time and money to do, and straightforward ports from 360-style DirectX games won't necessarily show what the PS3 can really do to best advantage.

The PS3 has another advantage with the Blu-Ray disc, as it has over 5 times more on-disc storage than the 360 has (though at the cost of a reduced maximum transfer speed). That can help allow for more extravagant level budgets, especially in titles that support streaming audio and graphics loading.

The bottom line is, we've not begun to see the best of what either the 360 or the PS3 will be capable of. The good news is that Sony is making a big enough push that they might get enough purchasers of their console that the budgets will have a chance to continue to be there to make these amazing games.

Re:Oh My Fucking God Sony

It's a good start. Still not enough for a $499 (minimum) system.

Re:And this is interesting, why?

Because Slashdot isn't written for you personally. Rather it's for a whole lot of people in addition to you. And they don't all have precisely the same opinions as you. Nor are they obligated to choose as you have.

Some people besides you won't let one incident in the past, an incident that maybe didn't even affect them directly, decide their entire future from that day forward. Perhaps you want every single one of the hundreds of thousands of people who work for Sony (and Sony-BMG and presumably Sony-Ericsson) to lose their jobs for one bad decision of a few record company losers. But not everyone does.

Re:My Thoughts from E3

Sure, all that may look "cool" but are you really comfortable buying from a company who sued lik-sang.com out of business because Sony doesn't believe in the right of resale (i.e. Sony doesn't believe you should be allowed to have a garage sale.) and a company who installed rootkits on the computers of their own paying customers and when called out on it said, "What's the big deal?"

Yeah, I'm not. Since those incidents, I've tried to avoid giving any money whatsoever to Sony as much as possible. Why are you so willing to buy from them? Do those trespasses committed by Sony mean nothing to you?

Re:WOW

It's just you.

The PS2 continues to sell extremely well and continues to be a major revenue driver.

You don't really want to have the most GFLOPS/polygons/texels per second videogame. What you want is to have the most profitable one.

Re:Oh My Fucking God Sony

The main problem I had was while the graphics really were amazing, there was almost no game I even was mildly interested in. I counted 10-11 shooter 9 of them first person 2 third person, 2 wannabe rpgs which in fact were just third person fighters. Ratched and Clank was interesting though, MGS4 also (because I have not played the other parts) and then the most interesting thing was the puzzle game with the 80s style vector only graphics. Anyway Sony did it right this year, while Nintendo was somewhat of a letdown. But the sony lineup definitely is not a reason to shell out 900USD (that is the price in Europe) for a PS3!!! For that price I can get a decent gaming PC!

Re:It's Like The PS3 Is A Whole Gen Ahead

Sony, please. This is getting ridiculous. How about making the PS3 another 100 bucks cheaper instead of paying people to post crap like this to /.? :-)

Re:Oh My Fucking God Sony

Yeah but announcing Wii Fit at the E3 was probably not the best move. Only regular gamers follow E3 coverage while Wii Fit seems geared at the audiences that wouldn't even know what E3 is.

Re:It's Like The PS3 Is A Whole Gen Ahead

EARTH TO BUNGIE! NO ONE IS IMPRESSED WITH BRIGHT LIGHTS ON SHINY METAL ANYMORE!

Yeah, I noticed the Killzone textures were just flat with impressions and bumps just drawn on to the texture like older Q2 and Q3 based titles (although, even later Q3 engine games were a bit more sophisticated than that). Retro 3D FTW.