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Sony @ E3 2007 – Desperately Seeking Relevancy

Sony Press Conferences are even better to summarize because there's rarely anything of substance, and what does have substance is probably multi-platform.

So lets dive right in:

PS2: Sony reminded us that the PS2 does exist, and they are still totally supporting it! And then they promptly said "Oh but we aren't talking about PS2 stuff today." Great job, Sony.

PSP Hardware: The $169.99 price drop apparently went well for them, and sales are up, but they're still nowhere near competing with Nintendo in the handheld market, or in any market really. So they've squeezed out the PSP remake. And what amazing new features does it have? Well, it looks almost identical to the old one, but it's 33% lighter and 19% slimmer than the old one, so it feels different. It also has a better battery (but they're not quantifying that one), and comes in "new" colors. What new colors? "Piano Black" (which sounds a lot like "black" to me) and "White Silver" (which sounds a lot like "white" to me). Very new, right? The new PSP also has the ability to hook up to some sort of standard video output (probably component), so you can watch your hilariously compressed videos and PS1-quality game graphics on your HDTV.

There's also bundles, they'll be sold starting in September in a $199 bundle that comes with one of the new PSPs, a Jak game, a Family Guy UMD collection (gotta move them UMDs!), and a large capacity memory stick. Additionally, there'll be a special goofy Star Wars branded new PSP which is just a white one with Vader on the back, which comes with a new exclusive Battlefront sequel. Oh, and it was introduced by Chewbacca. I am not making this up.

Why did they make this new model? Why didn't they do something major about size or add some onboard memory? Why did they make none of the changes anyone wanted except for increased battery life? What will happen to the price of the old PSPs? No one knows. It is a mystery.

PSP Software: Nothing incredibly shocking was shown in the PSP software montages. It's nice to see that stuff is still coming, despite how far behind the DS the PSP is lagging. Konami is still working on the Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, Square Enix is still working on the Final Fantasy Tactics port, Silent Hill: Origins is still coming, and so on.

PS3 Hardware: Whoops, our big E3 surprise was let out of the bag thanks to Circuit City and Target. And a lot of people still don't think it was that big of a deal in the first place. Whoops! The bits about PS3 hardware completely reaffirmed the stuff I talked about in the PS3 drop announcement article, specifically that the 20Gb PS3 is dead to Sony. They're not dropping the price on that. That SKU is irrelevant. Unfortunately for Sony, a 20 or 40Gb PS3 priced at $300 or maybe even $350 would fly off the shelves, too bad they're still hung up on this theoretical huge base of users who have $600 to drop on consoles.

Third-Party PS3 Software: I swear, one of the montages they did was the exact same lineup shown in another montage from last night's Microsoft conference. Where there were exclusives, though, there were some big exclusives. Epic was a rather huge shocker. Somehow, despite how deep in bed Epic Games is with Microsoft, what with Gears of War and all the shiny new Live for Windows integration they're doing for the Unreal 3 Engine announced last night, Sony managed to score Unreal Tournament 3 as a time-limited console exclusive. Now, mind, that's "exclusive to this console, compared to other consoles". UT3 will still be launching simultaneously on PC and PS3. And the PS3 version will supposedly be able to benefit from mods developed for the PC version, by being able to download them via PSN. This announcement also got us an almost-release-date for UT3: November 2007. Oh, by the way, it looks great.

Hideo Kojima also came out to show off the latest real-time in-engine trailer of Metal Gear Solid 4, complete with real English voice acting. It was pretty outstanding, watch it for yourself. Sadly, Kojima mentioned that MGS4 is the end. Last Metal Gear game. Last game for Snake. Last game for Kojima. Whether he'll actually follow through with this is yet to be seen. MGS4 is presently slated for "Early 2008".

Finally on Third Party software, Kaz Hirai is still sticking to his guns about the claim that there's going to be 200 new Blu-Ray games this year worldwide, with another 180 coming over PSN, and that 120 of those 200 Blu-Ray games would be coming to the US. So where are they all!?!? Why have they not been shown to us? Why weren't you featuring them during this press conference?

First-Party PS3 Software: Heavenly Sword still looks amazing. Uncharted still looks amazing. LittleBigPlanet is still completely uninteresting to me, someone who totally doesn't understand Sony's (or anyone's) attraction to things like Second Life. But really, what everyone came here for was Killzone 2. Sony totally swears that the latest Killzone 2 trailer is fully in-game, completely real-time, and totally not bogus in any way. The problem? I've never heard anyone explain why this is a good game. Same thing for Killzone 1. Same thing for the PSP Killzone. They churn these games out and all I have ever heard is the negative hype. All I've heard is about faked trailers and pre-rendered assets and other similar bullshit.

So with all that said, what do we have? A revamp that wishes it was as good as the DS Lite. A PS3 price drop that's too little, too late, and (in a hilarious turn of events) too early to be a big deal at E3. They've finally got some decent looking exclusives slated for the PS3, but in my opinion, only MGS4, Heavenly Sword and Killzone 2 look like ones that'll be Console Sellers, and what Sony needs so badly right now are some Console Sellers. They need exclusives people care about, not Second Life magical e-treehouse crap like Home. And until Sony realizes this, they're going to have to just enjoy their position down there at #3.

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