Summary: All in all a severely unimpressive presentation that lacked that "Wow factor" I was hoping for. I joined the world in watching the Sony press conference with a great deal of optimism but left excited about Wii.
Don't watch it, check out
highlights instead.Highlights: Final Fantasy XIII, Interesting card game for Eye Toy, Tiger Woods tech demo, Launch details.
I began watching expecting a lot. I was expecting 360 beating graphics. What I saw was far from.
The presentation started off with a display of
Gran Tourismo HD, an adaption of GT4 to the PS3 for High definition TV. But without the HD to hide behind the ugly truth seeped through. Though I took this first demo with a pinch of salt as it was only a quick job I was already feeling suspicious.
The most notable point of this demo was the grand canyon. It looked like a photo, and not in the sense of photo realism but in the sense of a cut and paste job.
The next demo was more of a step in the right direction. We're shown a table with a 3x3 grid. The eye toy is pointing at the grid as a card is placed in the center square. A magic circle appears and a monster is summoned on the screen, looking good. The card is fumbled across the table where the monster suddenly teleports across to where the card was moved, it jitters around a bit and settles down. More cards are placed with low frame rates occurring at 2, then worse at 3 summoned monsters. The response time for the Eye Toy is as poor as ever leaving me feeling it was a neat idea but executed poorly.
"
ok this show can still pick up, it's only just beginning" I think to myself.
A short presentation on online functions. While the features such as voice and text messaging are nice I couldn't help worry about the announcement of "These services are all free of charge" while nothing is mentioned of whether there is a charge for actual gameplay.
There was a small presentation on
Singstar which was pretty nice. They walked through features such as buying new tracks while also setting a spending limit for parents to manage their kids spending. The singstar profile was nice, sort of like a Gamer card for 360. Nice features if you're into Singstar, unfortunately I didn't come for this, infact i didn't come here at all I'm watching a freaking stream.
The next presentation was the worst of them all. We are shown how PSX games can be downloaded to your memory stick. This is a nice idea but it was the presentation of it that annoyed me. We were treated to the comment "Hey it's
ridge racer! brings back memories for me, isn't this great?" sounded almost like he was saying "isn't this fun boys and girls."
"ok a tad condescending but there's still hope, show me some titles that have been in the works for a while"
Onto the next game,
Genji 2. Reminded me of Dynasty Warriors. I hate Dynasty Warriors. They said you could find new and unique ways of killing foes like it was something innovative but all he did was flip a giant crab on its back (after much difficulty getting around some other enemy) and stab it in the stomach. Once again without that big screen or HD quality the true quality shone through, looking like a high end PS2 or medium Xbox game. Yes, I said Xbox, not 360.
Next up a small demo of how the PSP can be used as a rear view mirror. Infact I think they used it as a wing mirror, suggesting you would need two. Nice idea, average presentation.
"ok this is getting boring, something better start happening"
Heavenly Sword. Now this is more like it! Nice looking visuals, good effects, some slick sound. Heavenly sword is basically an action/hack and slash. It reminded me of God of war crossed with something like Bujingai. The female character dashed around the screen slaughtering enemies, tossing them into the air, doing awesome air combos and slamming them back to the ground. They threw a bit of button combos where a button appeared on screen and you would have to press it, again similar to GOW but then they weren't the first to do this and I like this sort of thing.
"ok cool looking better now lets what's next"A load of FMV sequences featuring
Lair, Getaway, Afrika, Hot shots golf, Monster Kingdom. No actual in game footage with the exception of hot shots golf.
"FMVs aren't exciting show me real ingame footage"Now this is better. A demo of a game called
Eight Days. The Cutscenes looked weak but then it switched between cutscene and actual gameplay seamlessly. The cutscene had bad animation but when it switched to gameplay the character moved amazingly. The way he ran and dived through windows and over cars was really nice to watch as were the effects and lighting etc.
A bunch of other uninteresting games apart from
Gundam, Ridge Racer and Stranglehold. They were all FMVs once again, maybe not Stranglehold (Game feat Chow Yung Fat and by John WOO!). Ridge Racer has a nice arcade feel to it so I'm pretty confident that at least that will pull through.
"bored, bored of typing. I mean, this isn't even well written to start off with."
At this point Gamespot cut out and it didn't come back till NBA live.
Boring NBA live video followed by some crap and a nob saying "I'm confident madden will be a MUST HAVE"
"Must have? yeh right, good one hahaha."There was a Tiger woods tech demo which looked really good. Very realistic with natural movement but i was just a tech demo and after seeing the gameplay demos I wasn't as impressed as I could be.
Some footage of some standard franchises such as Medal of honor.
Some awesome footage of Final Fantasy XIII. Looked like Advent Children the game, but really if I think about it I don't know whether it's worth the money.
MGS4 trailer - Great.
Then came the "big" announcement. The controller was revealed out of a jacket pocket to silence. Absolute silence. "It's the new pad" he said, followed by a small applause.
Then they showed off it's brand NEW function.
Motion Detecting...
That's right, now before you jump at me shouting "Those bastards, they stole Nintendo's idea" this is nothing like the Wii controller. This is a standard PS2 controller, albeit lighter and wireless, that you tilt about the air to control something. In this demo it was Warhawk. They presented this like it was some sort of revelation but it brought my mind back years ago to this:
If you have ever used a Sidewinder pad and played WWII flight sim then you've played on a PS3. Infact the visuals of that Microsoft game are probably on par with PS3's (in non High Definition)
They announce info on the price. 20gig Hard drive for something like $400 but a 60gig for $600.
Six hundred whole dollars.
But then the best news came. They announce the launch. November 17. Why was this the best news? Because this means that there is huge possibility that the Wii date will be announced and it will be before November 17.
All in all this conference was seriously lackluster and you could tell by the crowds reaction. Without HD the graphics looked poor and the performance was sub par. Not only that but Sony's own research said that 25% of USA households will have HD TV by the end of the year. Which means 75% of the whole USA will experience the poor HDless quality and it is probably much worse for over here in the UK.
"What?! That's it?!"Yep folks, that was the end. I wasted about 3 hours with this conference (waiting for it to start because of the delay and writing it up too). I suggest you don't and just look at the highlights. Seriously people, don't subject yourself to that.
I'm sure a lot of reporters left that room thinking about Microsoft and Nintendo more than Sony.
