I feel like Sony has been the carrier of some of the best games during its PS1 and PS2 lifecycle. When Xbox dropped in with Microsoft’s billions behind it, Sony was competing with an equal, so things have leveled out. That has only made things better for the consumer, as they are constantly trying to one up eachother.
Last year Microsoft stole Sony’s thunder by announcing Final Fantasy XIII would be coming to the Xbox 360. That was a huge jab for Sony, because even though Sony has the superior Blu Ray technology for the discs, Square Enix was willing to totally overhaul the game to fit on a handful of DVD discs for Microsoft. And the reason? Sales, of course. The Playstation 3’s install base, which has grown significantly, is still lagging behind Microsoft. Square Enix wants to make as much money as they can with their product, so they make it available on multiple consoles to draw in more revenue. Simple, really, yet I don’t understand why some developers still do console exclusives. That’s neither here nor there.
This year Sony brought a few surprises out. Most notably were the PSP Go! and their new motion controller technology. They also delivered a shit-ton of video game montages to drive home the fact that they do have stuff worth playing on their system. There weren’t any big game announcements other than a few exclusives on their PSP Go! and the trailer for FFXIV, the next MMO in the series.
The PSP Go! (with !, without !, who knows?) is not a PSP2. It will be sold simultaneously with the current PSP 3000. However, the Go has some major cosmetic differences. Most notably is the slide screen, which makes this thing slighly larger than my iPhone when closed. Very cool, IMO. It slides up to reveal the controller buttons, with shoulder buttons on each side of the device behind the screen. It also ditches the UMD slot and replaces it with a 16 GB hard drive. This means the games will be digital download only from here on out, which is awesome to me, because I love the idea of carrying all of my games with me wherever I go.
The downside to the new Go is the price. It’s $250. That’s the cost of a Wii, and more than the cost of a 360 Arcade. I’m having a hard time justifying this as a possible purchase, because I think of the portable genre as a bridge between events. Travelling, waiting, having a shite, power’s out, on a plane, on a boat (motherfucker), etc. These are the only times I would use a portable gaming system. If I’m at home from work, I will be playing on the big screen, because those are my priorities. So to spend that much on a bridge system just doesn’t make sense to me. I’ll be watching it to see what it does, but I don’t see myself picking one up in the immediate future.
Sony’s motion controller interface looked pretty good, even though it’s only in the beginning stages of development. It’s very accurate and looked like 1:1 motion recognition. I don’t blame Sony for jumping on the motion controller bandwagon. However, it looks to me like it’s a more functional and accurate version of the Wii remote. I guess time will tell what innovations they can come up with that are more than just “waggle this” and point-and-shoot. I think that a combination of Sony’s and Microsoft’s Natal would make for some fun gameplay. Natal took a big leap by putting you as the controller, but you still need some buttons in there. Even if you could make a little glove with a couple of buttons, I think that would open up the floodgates for all kinds of games — FPS, racing, fighting, you name it.
Other than the announcement of an MGS direct sequel for the PSP and a few other PSP exclusives, the only standout game announcement was that of FFXIV Online. This will be coming in 2010, and they had a nice CG trailer to show off. I’m done with MMO games, however, so this doesn’t really appeal to me, but I’ll go out on a limb and say Final Fantasy has the most consecutive numbered games in all of gaming history. Sony did tout that the game was exclusive to PS3, which is probably a statement to try and take the sting off of the now multiplat FFXIII. And then Square went and ruined this the next day by saying that they are open to all possibilities of distribution of this game. Burn again Sony!
Sony did not announce one major leak, which was the PS3 Slim. Snapshots of this showed up a few weeks ago and were immediately hit with the Cease & Desist letters by Taiwanese lawyers. This may have validated their existence, but Sony didn’t bring it up at E3.
They also didn’t speak word one about a price drop. If the Slim is real, I want to see it side-by-side with the PS3 so I can decide which to buy. However, Dell.com always has great discounts on PS3 bundles, so I may just pick up the fat box when I can.
