Live from Sony Pictures Studios

OK, people are filing in and finding seats. The briefing was scheduled for a 4PM start, but let's face it, starting things on time is, like, soooo 2001.

 

Less than an hour delay, though, which is pretty good. Kaz Hirai is on stage right now, giving a PS3 overview. It'll interface seamlessly with the PSP. It's out in November. And now he's taking a step back to talk about the PS2.

 

4:55 - 103.69 million PS2s have been sold as of 3/31/06

 

4:56 - 1.047 billion pieces of PS2 software have been shipped as of 3/31/06.

 

4:57 - Sony will support the PS2 for "many, many more years to come."

 

There's a list of new PS2 games that are being shown at the show. He mentioned Guitar Hero 2! Nice. 216 new PS2 games before the end of the year.

 

4:58 - On to PSP sales. Gotta love how these things always start with hella charts and business stuff.

 

4:59 - 17.03 million PSPs shipped worldwide since 3/31/06. 47.3 million pieces of software.

 

5pm - PSP software reel - LocoRoco, Gangs of London, Ape Academy 2, PlanetPSP (working title) is some kind of... travel guide or something? Killzone looks cool, top-down action. B-Boy is a f-ing breakdancing game. Awesome. LocoRoco remains totally radical. Syphon Filter Dark Mirror is some third-person action for that ass. World Tour Soccer 2 is... you know... soccer.

 

TalkMan! Are they bringing it to the US? Cool. Gangs of London is some more thirdperson action in a very Getaway-like style.

 

5:02 - Back to Kaz, he's announcing a PSP greatest hits program. Wipeout and four others will be the first games to get the discount. Games must have shipped 250k to qualify. 18 million non-game UMDs have shipped to market. How many of those actually sold?

 

5:03 - Talking about PSP firmware upgrades, covering the existing 2.7 stuff. In the future, VOIP, camera, GPS peripherals. "Memory Stick Boot" is listed as another future upgrade.

 

5:05 - Cut to video, "everyday" people in Times Square evangelizing the PlayStation brand. They're... very exciting. One guy likes the hard plastic. And the knobby bits. Now they're off to London for more of the same! I bet these guys like footy!

 

Sydney! Britney loves PlayStation! She wants a PS3! Britney? So do I!

 

More of the same from some other part of the world. Here they're into wireless features!

 

Tokyo next! Japanese lady in the train station wants a PS3! "When I play games, I become a monkey" says one guy! Great!

 

Mexico! Here they speak Spanish and they LOVE PLAYSTATION! Dudes, I love PlayStation, too!

 

5:09 - video over, back to Kaz to discuss the global impact of the PlayStation. I still don't like the Spider-Man font. But now they're going to talk PS3.

 

It still supports 1080p. It has a pre-installed hard drive. Still has ports for USB, memory stick, SD, compact flash. Bluetooth, WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet. Dolby Digital Surround Sound for "maximum audio enjoyment."

 

Back compatibility will support "Over 15,000 titles." PSP will hook up via network, USB, and memory stick.

 

5:11 - A bit of Blu-Ray evangelization. Charts about disc storage. The Dreamcast could only hold 1GB! PS3 can hold like 50GB! That means the games will be 50 times as good, right?

 

5:12 - According to Sony research, PS owners are more likely to own or plan to buy an HDTV. Hard drive talk now: Every PS3 will ship with a hard drive. It will improve overall game performance, caching, etc.

 

5:13 - Japan, NA, EU, Australia in early November. The clear black PS3 will be available at launch. Looks shiny.

 

5:14 - Over 10K development systems have ben shipped. Final kits are shipping now. Some E3 games will be running on final kits. "Today, we will be showcasing playable game titles which will be available for people to play and enjoy at our booth."

 

5:15 - Phil Harrison is coming out to talk games. He's introducing a game maker... he's... he's... the creator of Motor Toon Grand Prix... and... Gran Turismo! It's Kazunori Yamauchi of Polyphony. Didn't expect to see GT stuff here.

 

5:17 - He's up and speaking Japanese with the help of a translator. He's here to show Gran Turismo HD, a prototype built for E3. It's a demo using GT4 assets that have been boosted up to run on PS3 in 1080p. It has four tracks including Grand Canyon and Tokyo R246, which has ben selected. It has 10 vehicles including three motorcycles. It's running at a smooth frame rate, as advertised. Why are driving games always used as tech demos to show off a console's power?

 

5:21 - Repeating the game's resolution. This is "three times as much information" that you'd see in an average HD broadcast. 12 times as much as GT4. Now on to another track. "Please pay special attention to the loading times." Does that mean it's running off a BD? It couldn't be, could it? OK, no, it's running off a hard drive. That's probably why the loads are so speedy.

 

5:25 - They're showing GT1 running in a tiny window. "Back in the days, this was real." Same small window, it's GT4 now. And now back to GTHD in a full-size window. These cars look smoother than the old cars, I guess. Not that it's not impressive.. I'm just not much of a GT fan, I guess.

 

5:27 - Now it's on to Grand Canyon in a Shelby Cobra. Car movement seemed jerky for a sec when the car was driving past a large, realistic looking crowd of onlookers. OK, the shot of the Grand Canyon looks really nice.

 

5:29 - Some last words: "this is only the beginning." And "we think the next GT will surpass the quality" of this demo. Shortly after E3 they'll be conducting some online beta tests with some sort of special version of GT4, it sounds like. "The world of GT will not expand, it will explode."

 

5:31 - They hope to deliver the next GT not too far past the console's launch. Demo's done, back to Phil Harrison. Next game combines a card-based battle game... the power of the PS3... and amazing "computer vision." Introducing "The Eye of Judgement: Conquerors of 9 fields" and the creator of the EyeToy.

 

He's placing real cards down on a grid. The camera is pointed at the gird and the whole thing appears on screen. Monsters pop out of the cards and do battle. That's kind of crazy. Phil Harrison has dropped a card that summoned... the duck from that duck demo! It's breathing fire and blasting the other monsters, blasting water at them. It'll be playable at their booth. Completely crazy. Pretty rad. Next!

 

5:34 - Back to Kaz Hirai to talk network strategy. Over 3,000,000 registered PS3 online users in North America alone. He's talking community building on PS3 and went ahead and name dropped MySpace.

They'll have rankings, video chat, friends lists, voice/text messaging, profile pages. They'll be available free of charge.

 

5:37 - Talking about network as a distribution channel. This is where they talk about their own version of Xbox Live Arcade or something. He's talking about electronic distribution of PS1 games on PSP via this upcoming service. He has a PSP... and... it's a 1995 PS game it's... on the memory stick... it's... the PS1 boot up screen... it's... Ridge Racer. He's playing Galaxian during the loading screen. Kaz can do a decent impression of the Ridge Racer announcer. Looks like it's a pretty faithful emulation. Music and speech is in. It has screen size options for stretching to fill the screen.

 

5:40 - If you're playing buzzword bingo, Kaz just said "micropayments." They'll also sell a prepaid card called The PlayStation Card. But enough about that, Phil's coming back to "go shopping."

 

He's showing the PS3 shop interface. He's in a store page devoted to Warhawk. Upper-right corner shows your account name. Prices are listed in US dollars. He's cutting over to show SingStar for PS3. It's the karaoke game that's only available in Europe  Is he really going to make us watch an HD Good Charlotte video? That's one of the bands in the game. PS2 and PS3 SingStar games will be on the show floor.

 

But on to the network side of this. In the SingStore you can buy new songs/videos to download. He's downloading Destiny's Child - Survivor. Terrific.

 

"My SingStar" will let you personalize the game and upload your own performances. Naked dudes with EyeToys singing Destiny's Child, coming soon! Creepy!

 

5:45 - Up next is a game from Game Republic. Bill Rich is here with Genji 2. He's playing with a PS2 controller. Will they unveil the final PS3 controller here? A dude with a large telephone pole is fighting a giant crab. Dude, I totally had a dream like this the other night.

 

5:49 - Phil Harrison is showing a Formula-1 game for PS3, F1 06. He says he's missing a wing mirror. Oh. Neat. He's pulled out a PSP and that's your rear view mirror. Can't get a good enough look at the PSP screen to see the quality of the image there, but it looks like it's moving smoothly.

 

5:51 - Moving on to Heavenly Sword. It's an arena battle. A lady with a sword is cutting up mad dudes. Air juggle combo, she's got a chain sword or something. Dual chain swords. I like how they keep showing picture-in-picture images of people holding the PS2 controller. I know it's because they're proving it's real-time, but it reminds me of what the Wii demos will probably look like. It will be playable on the floor. Lots of impressive and painful-looking combos. The enemies are talkative. Counter-based combat, from the looks of it. On-screen controller indicators for background-specific combos?

 

5:54 - On to a video of games that are a little further out.

Factor 5 game is up first. Lair. That dude is totally flying on a dragon.

From SCEE's London studio... a city street... some dudes... somewhat insidious music... and...a gy that sort of looks like the GTAIII guy, blasting another fool. It's Getaway.

 

Afrika (working title). That's a sweet-looking rhino. Marc Ecko would be proud or something. Giraffe, it's totally eating leaves. Zebtras! It's like I'm really there! Something has to roll up on these animals real soon and start tearing them up. It's too peaceful. There you go. Cheetah! Cut to black!

A game from Clap Hanz! Hot Shots? That's a golf course, all right. That dude had cornrows. So this game is automatically great, right?

 

Game Republic up next... this is... Kameo 2! Wait, that guy has a crazy face tattoo. Monster Kingdom (working title).

 

5:59 - Back to Harrison. Two brand-new titles up next. First from Sony London. Two guys checking out some guns in the trunk of a car, they're in Arizona. Some drive-by shooting. Wicked looking visuals. Tanker truck! More gun fire. On-foot action. I should move to Arizona, it looks nice. Guy just jumped through the window of a diner. This looks radical. They've got a HUD on it... is it real gameplay? Ooh, that tanker truck just crashed into the diner. It's called Eight Days. There we go. Gas spilling on the roadway... Burn it, dude. Blow it all up already Vin Diesel-looking guy. There we go. Boom.

 

6:02 - Next game is from Naughty Dog. "Some things lost should never be found." "Some curses can not be undone." Some game trailers should get to the action more quickly. OK, it's a normal looking guy running around a jungle scene in a T-shirt and jeans. Tomb Raider meets Far Cry meets kicking open doors! Looks really sharp. No game name was given.

 

CONTINUE to part two of the live blog!