Friday May 12, 2006
E3: Sony
This year's E3 was Sony's coming out party. This was going to be
their opportunity to show the PS3 running real games to analysts,
press, retailers, and fan boys all over the world. They seemed to
have positioned themselves pretty well.
First, the basics. They will be the most expensive of the three
consoles when they launch, but they will also be the most powerful of
the three consoles. Here is a good article summarizing the PS3
hardware. They have obviously made some changes based upon their
competitors moves. The motion capture controller is am obvious
nod to the Nintendo Wii. The hard drive, albeit a smaller one, on
the low end is a response to the XBox 360's critique for having no hard
drive on the low end.
As for the show floor, they did not disappoint. They had examples
of a number of genres and quite a few games on the floor. Kudos
to Sony for not hiding the actual hardware. I like the fact that
the devkit hardware was visibly rack mounted versus hidden beneath
pods. They were even showing a flight game based upon the motion
capture controller. A good summary of the games on display is
Sony also announced the Sony Online initiative for the PS3, which is a
response to the amazing popularity of XBox Live, but not enough details
have surfaced to decide if it will be enough to sway the Xbox 360 crowd
to PS3.
Sony has also stepped up the number of games for the PSP. That
was one of my biggest complaints - and still is to a certain degree -
but with a huge chunk of their booth dedicated to PSP content (as well
as downloadable demos), the PSP is on its way to being a great portable
game device.
The console wars are certainly heating up, and Sony appears to be
taking the role of most powerful devices, both with the PS3 and the
PSP. The question is will they be able to lure enough game
developers to build content specific to their devices. With
middleware and multiple console launches for the biggest games,
developers are leaving a lot of PS3 capabilities out in order to get
their titles on all three platforms. EA with its NFL madden
series is a great example of this. Also, will consumers be
willing to pay the big bucks for the premium hardware. Only time
will tell, and an exclusive PS3 game with stunning graphics and
gameplay is likely to be the key. Assasin's Creed and Metal Gear
Solid 4 seem to be getting a lot of praise, and they may just be the
titles to drive the PS3.
Posted at 11:41AM May 12, 2006 by dtwilleager in General | Comments[1]
Posted by karl on May 16, 2006 at 06:05 PM PDT #