E3 2006 -- Sony.

Sony had their E3 press conference today. The important details were revealed. The PlayStation 3 will launch worldwide on November 17, 2006.  It will be sold in two versions and two colors. The colors are silver and clear black, whatever that is. Version one features a 20GB HDD and retails for $499. Version two features a 60GB HDD, HDMI output, Wi-fi, Compact Flash / SD / Memory Stick slot and retails for $599. Okay, so the thing is expensive. So then, are the games so obviously superior to those of the X360? Not even close to that from what was shown at the conference. They made a big deal about playable content at the conference, and then proceeded to show replay footage of a Gran Turismo tech demo based off GT4 and bumped up on PS3 hardware. They had someone from the production team for Genji 2 come out and play a bit of the game. The guy appeared to have no idea what he was doing and was trying to show some new concepts the PS3 allows for with a boss battle. He couldn't find the boss. It took him a while to figure out where the boss comes from. This is someone heading up a team. He proceeds to flip over a giant crab and attacks a weakpoint. This ladies and gentlemen is a sample of the new concepts you'll be able to do on the PS3. Are they serious? There was a reel of footage for games that couldn't be played and would be out in the post launch window. Most of the footage wasn't gameplay. When your most impressive bit of footage is a bunch of zebras eating grass by a watering hole in a game named Afrika where it's impossible to discern whatever any gameplay might be like, you're not exactly putting your best foot forward in my opinion. They talked a lot about their online strategy. Which is best described as a complete and total rip-off of Xbox Live Marketplace, albeit free of charge. They're offering the bare minimum of services offered by Xbox Live. They're offering what amounts to voice chat, text messaging, email, video feeds and most importantly micro-transactions. They've made it clear that they want you to buy stuff. New music, new levels, new games. The free aspect comes into play in that it looks like a free service. It doesn't look as polished or as complete as Xbox Live from what was shown. This isn't even taking into account that their actual online game playing is still up to each developer to handle. None of Xbox Live's unity. None of its standards. You're essentially getting what you pay for here. A means to communicate with other gamers and a way to buy things from Sony and others. Sony had no shame in calling what they were offering innovative. That was only the first act. The second act of blatant thievery and audacity in calling something innovation came when they revealed the final controller for the system. Guess what? It's a PlayStation 2 Dual Shock 2 controller without the rumble, because they lost that lawsuit, you know the one where they were accused of stealing the rumble technology. But they didn't stop there. The controller has what amounts to a Xbox button on it. Just like the Xbox 360's controller. The controller is wireless now. The real surprise was in telling everyone that they've stolen Nintendo's Wii controller's tilt sensing functions. The PS3 controller can sense in six ways. X, Y, and Z give it a sense of where it is. Pitch, yaw, and roll give it a sense how it's positioned. So in other words you'll be able to tilt the controller this way and that to control an airplane and the like. In fact, they had a guy from the team making the game Warhawk come out and demonstrate the controller. He seemed to have decent enough control over the ship in the game, but he was jerking around like a near spaz. That's not something I'm exactly looking forward to seeing. My initial impression here is that Sony has messed up. The pricing may come to bite them in the ass. They didn't seem to offer any games that will wow the people to the point of justifying the price. They've reinforced Nintendo's concept and help to promote it as something other than a gimmick. They've reinforced Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace as the future. They've allowed for Microsoft to build on their lead as the place to play grown-up games, should Microsoft be able to deliver a few good to great exclusives for the system that is. A really good Halo 3 trailer might be able to do that alone at this point.  It will be interesting to see how Nintendo and Microsoft do with their respective turns. Right now, as of this day, I'd say Sony's in trouble. I think they have a hard sell right now, and I'm not sure that Jak & Daxter 17 and Gran Turismo 5 and the "We own everything, why try" version of Madden will do it for the average gamer. Not at that price. As for me personally, they announced that the only two games I consider must own titles on the system won't be out until 2007. They're Metal Gear Solid 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. So I don't need this system this year. They did do one thing right though, the PS3 will play PS2 and PSX games. I don't need to pay $600 for backwards compatibility. The only thing it has to offer me right now.