Sony's Tokyo Games Show Keynote Highlights

There was lots of little announcements over the course of Sony's TGS keynote ... but nothing earth shattering. For example, the only time a price drop was mentioned was to say there wouldn't be one soon. They're going to be expanding on the remote play capabilities of the PS3, something they've discussed previously. They did confirm the rumble controller, something the blogs were carrying yesterday. They're also going to delay the rollout of Home until next year, to give it a nice long Beta test period. You could say the 'big news' from their keynote was that they plan to work more closely with developers. Woo. "Hirai pointed to Crisis Core, a Square Enix collaboration on the PSP, as a recent example. 'Some of these collaborative endeavors are going on behind the scenes already,' Hirai said, 'largely in terms of development assistance courtesy of Sony Worldwide Studios. Sony is also listening to the opinions of developers whose games are already out.'" Of course, 'work more closely' may be a euphemism for 'buy out third parties'; the company just announced they've acquired the developer of MotorStorm . For further details, both 1up and Kotaku have liveblogs of the event.

Denial is, in fact, just a river in Egypt.

[seebs]

They denied the last price cut, too. Then, when the circuit city ads got leaked, they pressured CC to fire the employee who leaked them.

Re:Denial is, in fact, just a river in Egypt.

[gasaraki]

Only makes sense. Speculation about a price cut means more people hanging out for it and not buying more profitable (for Sony) PS3s today.

Re:Denial is, in fact, just a river in Egypt.

[Aladrin]

Indeed. Who believes anything Sony says now? Or any other manufacturer or developer, even. We've been told so many lies in the last 3 months that I can't count them all. Sony is STILL lying about why they didn't have rumble in the sixaxis.

Re:

[gamer4Life]

It's just good business. It would be moronic to say a price cut is imminent. It would be moronic to say that they didn't include a feature because of legal issues.

I believe Microsoft is much worse at lying and FUD, except Microsoft is creating grassroots FUD through bloggers and review sites.

Re:

[lucas teh geek]

the correct response when asked about upcoming price drops is "no comment". flat out lying is only going to piss off the customers who get burnt because they believe what the companies execs say.

Re:

[seebs]

Refusing to confirm a price drop, or in general refusing to talk about prices, I could understand, and that would make sense.

Lying, by contrast, means that they are not trustworthy, and you should not listen to anything they tell you.

Re:

[This_Is_My_Happening]

Well the (very light on details) blurb linked to in the summary does say "Sony has failed to confirm a price drop", and that they are committed to focus on Software rather than price for the time being. That's not exactly the same as saying there will not be a price drop. The "there wouldn't be one soon" statement in the Summary seems more like Zonk-spin than actual reporting.

That said, no one in their right mind should trust any company to be telling the the truth when their bottom line is at stake, Son

Sony is redefining...

[Alzheimers]

Sony is redefining the phrase "Nothing to see here, move along!"

So does the Dualshock 3....

[fistfullast33l]

have the SIXAXIS motion-sensing capabilities as well? I can't seem to find that mentioned anywhere.

Re:So does the Dualshock 3....

[kosanovich]

Yes it does have the motion sensing. If you read the keynote, when Kaz announced it he started off talking about how originally they thought there would be technical issues with having rumble and motion sensing but they have overcome those issues and have both in the new controller.

Dual Shock 3 has both Rumble and Motion.. Amazing.

[trdrstv]

Yes it does have the motion sensing. If you read the keynote, when Kaz announced it he started off talking about how originally they thought there would be technical issues with having rumble and motion sensing but they have overcome those issues and have both in the new controller.

Apparently Kaz isn' a fan of the WarioWare [warioware.biz] Series, since Nintendo was able to do both in 2003 (when the game shipped in Japan). Perhaps he wasn't lying, and it had nothing to with Legal issues, [bit-tech.net] maybe Nintendo has better engineers than Sony.

Re:

[sirroc]

Yes it does have the motion sensing. If you read the keynote, when Kaz announced it he started off talking about how originally they thought there would be technical issues with having rumble and motion sensing but they have overcome those issues and have both in the new controller.

If by "technical" you mean legal; and "overcome" you mean paid $125 million to license the technology. Then yes, Kaz was speaking the truth.

Re:

[kosanovich]

The original poster was not asking about the validity of Sony's argument about why they haven't had rumble until know. He asked if the controller has both rumble and motion sensing, so i told him where i had heard that it does have both. The point of my statement was to focus on the fact that they are both in the controller. We all assume that there weren't serious technical issues but let's not troll the subject.

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

Microsoft was just quicker to post the money for rumble than Sony... ;) Or we'd have seen a rumble at launch with the PS3. Not that I mind... I kinda like the lightweight controller for the PS3.

Guess I should get a few more before they stop selling them ;)

Re:

[fistfullast33l]

Yeah I really don't miss the rumble and like the weight as well...it's like holding a feather. Now if the dualshock had a nice LED in the middle like the commercials, I'd think about buying it.

Why is everyone so sure of a price drop?

[7Prime]

I'm inclined to believe Sony at this point, not because I trust them, but because I don't think a price drop is in their best interest. They're already losing some $300 per unit, why lose another $100, when they can claim pack-in bundles and shit like that?

There's some truth to the fact that, at $600, they're targeting people of whom money is not an object, so lowering it $100 isn't going to do much more than net them $100 less on every unit.

They've never hinted at a price drop, and I have yet to see a good reason besides a subjective, uninformed, "because they should."

Re:

[PhoenixOne]

Because they are 3rd place in a race with only three players?

If you look at all console sales (including portable and "last gen") there is a clear link between cost and sales (almost as if the majority of consumers have to live on a budget...).

Sony needs to move units fast or they are done.

[trdrstv]

I'm inclined to believe Sony at this point, not because I trust them, but because I don't think a price drop is in their best interest. They're already losing some $300 per unit, why lose another $100, when they can claim pack-in bundles and shit like that?

Because (using your math) if they are losing $300 per unit on a $600 unit, that's $900 lost for every unit that continues to sit on the self. Also being last place in the "Next Gen" race since the day the Wii Launched doesn't help either. They need to

Re:Sony needs to move units fast or they are done.

[Swordopolis]

Close, but no cigar.

As of July, they were losing about $200 a console (not quite as big, but still quite a hunk of change).

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6573&Itemid=2 [next-gen.biz]

Re:

[Swordopolis]

Look at it this way:
-The 360 is getting the killer app everyone's been waiting for (Halo 3) in a week.
-The Wii is getting the killer app everyone's been waiting for (Brawl) in Early December.
-The PS3 is getting the killer app everyone's been waiting for (MGS 4) AFTER Christmas.

Also, as was just announced:
-The Rumbling SIXAXIS everyone has been talking about won't be making it's US debut until the spring.
-PlayStation Home has likewise been pushed off until the spring.

In other words, the PS3 really doesn't an

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[7Prime]

Okay, so I guess now they're losing about $200 per unit... my bad, my facts were a few months outdated... there, you happy?

ass

Dualshock 3 -- spring 2008. Uh, why?

[Hamster Lover]

Why is it going to take six months (spring 2008) for the Dualshock 3 to hit North America when Japan will start seeing them in November? Unless "spring 2008" to Sony means January or February.

Either way, why the delay? It's just a controller.

Re:

[xero314]

Why is it going to take six months (spring 2008) for the Dualshock 3 to hit North America

It's probably not coming to north America because there are still enough stock to meet expectations through spring. No need to push out a rumble capable controller until the current stock is depleted unless they want to completely eat the cost on all the existing stock. I'm also making wild speculation that Japanese developers have been working on games with rumble capability for a while where Western Developers have not, which means America won't have rumble capable games for a while (totally wild specul

Re:

[iainl]

Because nobody is going to buy one until a price cut and the release of MGS4, Home and/or Little Big Planet next year anyway?

This is business as usual

[bakamaki]

for Sony. They never release much information ahead of time, just seems to be how they do stuff. Honestly I think the real difference between then and MS is how far ahead they are thinking. PS2 has watched XBOX 1 come and go and who knows how long before XBOX1080 Air is the only console MS is supporting. Sony expects their hardware to go alot farther and they don't know how to play the "console of the month" game with MS. I wish Sony wouldn't feel the need to play at anyone else's level and just keep d

Re:

[elrous0]

They never release much information ahead of time, just seems to be how they do stuff.

God I hope you're joking.