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E3 PlayStation (Games) Sony

Sony Displays New PSP, Polished Games At E3 236

Posted by Zonk from the love-to-review-some-of-those-games dept.
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.
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Sony Displays New PSP, Polished Games At E3 More

Sony Displays New PSP, Polished Games At E3

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  • Really real-time? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Crasty ( 1019258 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @04:54PM (#19830245)
    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.
  • 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...

    • Trailer wasn't FMV, it was realtime, in-engine footage. Not gameplay, but its a far cry from pre-rendered FMV. Its the same graphical quality you'd see from gameplay.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drewmca ( 611245 )
      I have no doubt that it was realtime, or that it was MGS gameplay. Because after all, MGS gameplay is pretty much just watching videos. At least it's more involved than two heads.

  • Pics of the new PSP (Score:5, Informative)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @04:57PM (#19830329) Homepage
    Engadget has the photos [engadget.com]. It doesn't look that much thinner to me.
    • Thanks, I was looking for pics. Yeah doesn't look too much thinner to me either, but every little bit helps I guess. The tv-out is... well it probably won't get much use, but its definitely a neat addition. I already own a PSP so I won't be buying a new one, but for what it is, a portable system, good for traveling and just quick games; I love mine.

      • Thanks, I was looking for pics. Yeah doesn't look too much thinner to me either, but every little bit helps I guess. The tv-out is... well it probably won't get much use, but its definitely a neat addition.

        Actually I think it's a great idea, however the link in the parent article does say how they do it. The linked Article says:

        "It will also come with the ability to output high-quality video by pressing the display button. This means that movies, games, photos, and all other PSP applications can be ou

        • So does this mean there are TV out ports (or a proprietary connector) to the PSP that connects to a TV VIA Composite, component, S-Video... or does it stream content to a PS3 and play on the screen?

          From reading the announcement it LOOKS like the answer is TV out, unless there is an extra PS3 he's not mentioning:

          11:49AM PDT - "You can control what you're seeing, I'll pause it, get rid of the menu, etc. If you want the video back on your PSP, push the display button again and it's back on your PSP. You can play games, videos, show photos, all of that on a tv screen or your PSP. With DLNA, you can also access the files on your PC at home via your PSP. This sparks the imagination, and encourages developers and players alike to think beyond the norm." We envision a bizarre future world where we stream computer video to the PS3 to the PSP over RemotePlay and then video output to a friend's HDTV. Sure, we'll only use this feature once ... but it's cool nevertheless. "As you can see it comes in piano black, but there are some additional colors that are coming to North America, which Jack will show off in a moment."

          (yes, you can access your PS3 from a remote location using your PSP).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      It's meant to be 1/5th thinner or so which isn't much. I think more important is the weight reduction which means the new model is 2/3rds the weight of the old one. How they're chopping the weight I don't know, but probably by simplifying the UMD mechanism and possibly the battery as well. The Engadget screenshots suggest the slight bulge at the back that housed the battery has gone, meaning this may well be how they cut some of the weight & volume.

      I was expecting something far more radical to be hone

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Nope,in fact it looks exactly like the PSP I got my daughter that I imported from Japan 2 christmas's ago.

  • But..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cstdenis ( 1118589 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:06PM (#19830477)
    Will it blend?

  • Light at the End of the Tunnle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:09PM (#19830527)
    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 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dunezone ( 899268 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:15PM (#19830609) Journal
    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.

    • Not all. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mark Gillespie ( 866733 )
      Sure the big hitters (and PS3 exclusives) MGS4 and Killzone2 are 2008, but there are big hitters were not shown, that will be the bread and butter until then.

      Unreal Tournement (PS3 timed Exclusive till late 2008)
      Haze (PS3 exclusive)
      Ratchet And Clank Tools Of Destruction(PS3 exclusive)
      Warhawk(PS3 exclusive)
      Drakes Fortune(PS3 exclusive)
      Lair(PS3 exclusive)
      GT5 Prologue(PS3 exclusive)

      In addition, you have GTA IV to keep you happy until then..
      I'm sure there are plenty more that I forgot, either way, that list is
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • It's a different meaning of "universal". It's not "universal" as in "every device ever made will read and write it", but "universal" as in "we can store games _and_ movies on it and god knows what other digital stuff we'll think about later."

      Not saying you should necessarily get one, just clarifying why the name.

      And, no, there's nothing Orwellian about it. Some words simply have more than one meaning, surprising as that may seem. Same, if you will, as F/OSS fans will write all over the place about the diffe
      • Actually, free as in beer/speech are closely related, but usually distinct in software licensing. True liberty is also not limited by a selling price. Truly zero-price "sales" are limited by nothing.

        It's the part-way application of each kind of "free" to software licensing that requires careful distinction and frequent disambiguation.

        Likewise, neither "games and movies" nor "works on every device" alone is the meaning of "universal" in storage tech. But the beer/speech distinction is pretty familiar. Sony's

        • So I guess the answer is "Sony stuck us again with UMD on the new PSP".

          It's the exact same hardware we already have, in a slightly more svelte form-factor. Why in the flying fuck would you possibly think they would throw out the UMD format, and with it the ability to play all the games that have already been released for the PSP?

          Sony has designs on making money, and consumers sure as hell aren't stupid enough to buy the same machine with no compatibility with all the games already out for the platform. Presumably anyone capable of working a keyboard ought to be able to appr

          • Sony could make more money if it included a drive that reads both old UMD and new Blu-Ray or just cheap, but compatible, CD or DVD discs. You know, compatible with the rest of their products.

            But I guess you're just too fucking stupid to think of something obvious like that. Did you also notice that Sony isn't asking your worthless opinion?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )
      Are you actually, really, truly worried about the name?

      If so, maybe write Sony a letter with your concerns (normally, that would be a sarcastic remark from me, but this time it is genuine). It won't get them to change the name, but it might make you feel better.

  • heyho (Score:3, Insightful)

    by apodyopsis ( 1048476 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:33PM (#19830889)
    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!

    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exK-gV7yaE [youtube.com] oh my. oh my.

      .. And I thought Resistance looked good. Dribble.

    • Re:heyho (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ALeavitt ( 636946 ) * <aleavitt.gmail@com> on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:50PM (#19831123)
      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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:58PM (#19831233) Journal
      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.
      • The point of the Blu-Ray included in the PS3 isn't so much for the movies (though that's good, too)-- it's about game content. Today's games often fill up a DVD, and now that HD games are coming out, the Blu-Ray disc allows for better textures, larger game levels, and just all-around more content.

        PS3 games will be able to take advantage of greater capacity discs, a hard drive for streaming textures (making game levels bigger and better), and so on.

        The fact it'll play Blu-Ray movies is almost secondary.
        • But... but... compression, and adaptive generation!!

          OMG! They will save the world cause they don't cost anything and the Xenon can do it for free!

          (*slap*) Oh, sorry about that. I was taken over for a second by this evil Vista preloaded laptop sitting on the desk next to me.
        • The drive is too slow for that. The 360s normal run of the mill DVD drive feeds data to the 360 faster than the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 can feed the PS3. You get more storage, but it's *slower*. To transfer a whole disc worth of textures to an HDD would take *hours*. So, it's all a compromise. You can have more levels per disc, more textures, but the transfer rate is going to kill you if you want larger streaming levels with larger textures without transfering to a faster HDD. And HD performance isn'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )
      It's also a fantastic upscaling DVD player since the last firmware update.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

      While I agree that the PS3 often gets a hard time from anti-fanboys, I fundamentally disagree with your insinuation that MS has somehow been overly monopolizing in pushing the Xbox and the 360. Let's face it, both Sony and MS have been guilty of making huge subsidies to consumers to try and push their console - this is no secret, so if you're going to string up MS for it, you have to do the same to Sony. As for your accusation of oppressive leverage - where has MS exerted this where no other console manufac

  • Amazing! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:34PM (#19830893) Homepage
    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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )
      Probably depends on what games are released .

      Why would the people who were only waiting for a price drop wait another week? The price probably isn't going to drop again next week.

      This question reminds me of the Europe launch. There was a lot of hype leading up to the launch. Sony had enough units to meet the demand the first week, so everyone who wanted one was able to buy one. Then the press made a big deal that sales were down 82% the second week, as if the reason was some kind of mystery.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by seebs ( 15766 )
        There's a reasonable set of people who were waiting for a price drop (who might have bought at $600 if they'd been SURE there was no price drop coming), or who would have bought at any time for $500, but not for $600. And, of those people, some don't care enough to find out immediately about the price drop... But most of them will have seen PS3's in a store at $500 in a month.

  • User generated content (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @05:39PM (#19830961)
    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.
    • Microsoft's extremism in console security trumps any such wish for user-generated content. Microsoft knows that if user-generated content is allowed, it won't be long before someone finds a bug in a game and exploits it to run Linux. After all, this happened repeatedly on Xbox, and on 360's King Kong, even without true user-generated content.

      Sony doesn't really have this problem. The system is already hacked, and it ran Linux to begin with. They couldn't keep up with such exploits on PSP.

  • NCsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by clragon ( 923326 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @06:04PM (#19831321)
    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? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @06:21PM (#19831513) Homepage
      I Wonder, why is NCsoft a "heavy backer" for the PS3?

      Perhaps all their staff are morbidly obese?
    • They've become second party to Sony, in other words they've basically been bought out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonabbey ( 2498 ) *

      Because they can port their MMORPG games to the PS3 and re-use their existing server farms, right along their PC clients. On the 360, they'd be required to use XBox Live for all the multiplayer gaming.

    • Name the previous generation console with 2 MMORPG's: the PS2.

      Name the previous generation console with hordes of RPG fans that any company would love to have paying them 15 bucks a month: the PS2.

      Which system do you think all those RPG fans are going to buy because they can keep playing their huge libraries of PSone and PS2 RPG's.

      The PS3.

    • Re:NCsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @07:10PM (#19832099)
      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)

  • 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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MeanderingMind ( 884641 ) * on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @06:22PM (#19831521) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by viniosity ( 592905 )
      More to the point, it's hard to see where this would cause many people who have a PSP to upgrade. This is one area where Apple, for instance, excels. They may not have great market share but they do a fantastic job at getting people to buy replacement laptops, ipods, and just about anything else they put out because the next gen always has some killer thing the previous gen did not. With the PSP we got something thinner with better battery life (good) and video out (very good). I would liked to have see
      • Memory Stick capacity currently tops out at 8GB, and with new tech it's rising all the time. And honestly, if you're finding your PSP to be dead weight, pick up a copy of Lumines and use a new exploit [noobz.eu] to get new life out of your console.

  • The real point of the PSP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by darkhitman ( 939662 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @06:37PM (#19831719)
    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.

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