Tuesday, June 7, 2011

E3 2011: Sony Press Conference Digest

Ok, in the interest of full disclosure, I was not thrilled with Sony's E3 press event being held at the same time as my beloved Bruins were playing Game 3 of the Stanley Cup. But thanks to modern technology, I was able to watch the live internet stream while cheering for the Bruins.

Right off the bat it's worth mentioning Sony Computer Entertainment's Jack Tretton got up in front of everyone at E3 and personally apologized for the PSN outage. Here's what he had to say to gamers like you and I:

To PS3 players, Tretton said, "You are the lifeblood of the company. Without you there is no PlayStation. And I want to apologize personally and on behalf of the company for any anxiety we've caused.

"I know we've taken you away from what you really enjoy doing," said Tretton. "It's you who cause us to be humble and amazed at the amount of support you give to the PlayStation brand."

Moving on from that, there werent many surprised in terms of games from Sony, but the biggest news was the official naming of the NGP - It's PSVita as was rumored not so long ago. While the name hasn't really settled with me yet, the $249 price tag has. Way to go Sony - seriously. This is going to result in an impressive generation of handheld gaming with both major players priced at $249 for wifi only devices. Honestly I am not interested in the 3G PSVita as AT&T already gets enough out of my paycheck every month as it is. I was convinced this system wouldn't retail for less than $399, and I am happy to eat crow.

The other big hardware announcement was a PlayStation branded 24inch 3DTV that is said to make the entry into 3D quite a bit more affordable. I look forward to seeing the retail price for this unit, as I'm in the market for a bedroom HDTV. Sony also announced matching active shutter glasses for this set (and for any 3dTV that supports those style of glasses), again said to have a good price point to make it easy to get into 3D.

Sony announced a new God of War collection - God of War Origins - which are PS3 ports of the PSP GOW games. This is most welcome - more Kratos is ALWAYS a good thing. Sony also mentioned the US release of the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD pack - both collections will hit retail in September. ("Hurry up and take my money!")

The people behind EVE Online announced it's shooter title Dust 514 would be a PS3 exclusive and somehow tie into the existing MMO game. To be blunt, this game didn't seem to bring anything new to the table based on the footage we saw, but I will keep my eye on this to see what is in store.

Irrational Games then hit the stage to show off a gameplay trailer for Bioshock Infinite and to announce a Bioshock title was coming to the PSVita. It was also announced that the original Bioshock would be included on the Bioshock Infinite disk for PS3.

Was it me or did it seem like the PSVita was getting party/cross game chat? I do hope that if this is the case we also get this long-overdue functionality on the PS3.

(Up next - Nintendo!)

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