E3 is here! Today I got the chance to watch a lot of the Sony Press conference at E3 via IGN streaming. They have and will continue to stream all E3 conferences and videos in HD, I recommend watching it if you don’t have a chance to attend E3. As far as all of the content that was mentioned, I don’t even know where to begin. Two full hours of video, Sony talk, previews and changes were mentioned and I’ll go over some of the highlights and big Sony news.
Kaz Hirai was the first speaker talking about 3D gaming and what Playstation is doing for the industry. He said, “What Playstation did for Blu-ray, we’re now going to do it for 3D.” A few 3D games launched today on the PSN like “Pain” and “Wipeout.” A feature game they mentioned was “Killzone 3.” This is a huge title coming out in 3D with a February 2011 release date. I saw about 3 minutes of the footage online, not in 3D of course (sad face) but the game footage was action packed and with the crowd’s great response I’m sure it looks fantastic. Hirai continued to say that Sony is the first in authentic 3D gaming with over 20 games being released in 3D by March 2011. Some of these titles include: “Shaun White Skateboarding,” “Mortal Kombat,” “Motorstorm: Apocolyse,” “Gran Turismo 5,” “Sly Cooper,” “NBA 2K11” and “Ghost Recon.” A clip of “Gran Turismo 5” was also shown in 3D. Also remember that these games are being created in 3D, no conversion will be done with these amazing titles. Sony believes that 2010 will be remembered as the year Sony brought 3D to the gaming industry.
Next up was the Playstation Move, which will be released September 19th. Pricing was revealed for the move at $49.99 with the Navigation Controller being an extra $29.99. You can purchase a bundle which will include “Sports Champions” and the controllers for $99.99. Additional games are set to be priced at $39.99.
Click the jump for the rest of the highlights!
After PS3 Move other games were discussed like the new Medal of Honor which is going in the ‘modern warfare’ direction. As I am a huge fan of the “Call of Duty” franchise, the “Medal of Honor” trailer was mediocre. “Little Big Planet 2” was talked about with a video and has a fall release date (yay!).
The next highlight is the Playstation Plus! The rumors were true! Sony will now offer users a premium PSN service for $49.99 a year or $17.99 for three months. Features will include: early demos, full PSN games, themes, discounts and automated downloads that will send out streamed content to the PS3. The Playstation Plus will be out later this month.
Another game coming to the PS3 is Portal 2! The upcoming game is a FPS action puzzle game that Gabe Newell came on the stage to introduce the game and show the video clip below. Newell also said the PS3 version of the game will be the “best version on any console,” featuring Steam cloud support. Release date is 2011.
The big finale of the conference was, drumroll please….”Twisted Metal!!” A new PS3 game is coming 2011 and this was very exciting to all. The gameplay itself showed new vehicles to drive like a helicopter for air combat, which is a first for the “Twisted” series. The new Twisted Metal will offer split screen 2 player and objective multiplayer online for some great battles. Below is the teaser trailer that was shown before gameplay footage:
There was so much more to cover but these were the big highlights that stood out for me. Sony did a fantastic job at the conference showing us so many games, media and exclusives to look forward to for this year and next. Tomorrow I get to go to E3 for a few hours through my work, mOcean. I am beyond excited to attend and have no idea what to expect.