E3 2010: Sony Conference
It should have been a fairly simple task, given Microsoft’s weakness at their conference, to get up there and look the better group. Instead we received the same insults, arrogance and gimmicks that have plagued Sony’s conference for years now, so I can’t say i’m particularly surprised they didn’t pull off anything better. It started with mockery towards Kinect, which is rather ironic of Sony, but more on that later. The conference began in style with talk of 3D and Sony leading the way. Note how Sony dances over Reggie’s Nintendo statements of fashion statement specs as people are forced to use them in order to watch the 3d presentation.
The presentation is spectacular enough (if you have 3d specs I imagine), but the behind the scenes small print isn’t. What Sony aren’t telling you is that you’d need to fork out thousands of pounds to even use the technology they’re showcasing on that big shiny tv screen at the conference. 3DTV is a long way off being a consumer choice given we’ve just got used to HDTV, so the start of Sony’s presentation feels like false promise. You can have this in your home as well, if you fork out an extreme amount of money. Suddenly buying a Kinect that we don’t know the price off became a whole lot cheaper.
The presentation ended with the iconic Sony montage of titles available for 3d, before moving on the iconic graphs of “Look, we’re still doing good!” Precision and experience became the plus words, much like transform at the Microsoft conference, before the Move presentation began. It’s here you realise the mockery aimed towards Microsoft is so deliciously ironic that it’s insulting. If this were any other company it could be laughed off. They mock Microsoft’s Kinect throughout the Move presentation and a little after, and yet they seem to be ignoring a few fundemental things. The Kinect is attempting something totally new based upon the ideas of being able to move in gaming that have come from the Nintendo Wii. Sony cannot say the same thing, preferring instead to come up with their own Wii remote duplicate. The Kinect is a bold endeavour that will start off shakey with lacklustre games and then move on to better games. Sony cannot, again, say the same thing, preferring to put in cheap ability functionality into old games and referring totally to Wii style gameplay for new.
So in the end Sony can’t really mock, they have no room for these insults. They themselves are no better, and are indeed worse than Microsoft for plagerising rather than trying something new. Either way Move was shown off with a new game, Sorcery, an interesting magic based game that uses the Move more alternatively than anything that has been seen so far. Sorcery moved on to Tiger Woods golf (glance over all Tiger jokes), with good precision from the Move device, though I wonder what comparisons would be like between the Wii and the Move in this game.
Costs finally came out. $50.00 for the remote, $30.00 for the add on Nunch- I mean, Navigation Controller. Nice to know they’ve even copied Nintendo’s style of selling. The scene moved on to another Sony Montage of games that will be Move compatible, a whole feast of old and new. Then came the PSP, how silly of them given that Nintendo effectively blew everything PSP based out of the handheld water. What appeared for the PSP to try and sell it was one of the worst adverts ever seen with some rude kid who must be Sony’s vision of what video gamers are like. Another PSP Montage. Get it over with quickly I imagine.
Little Big Planet appeared on stage to show their sequel, a blessing surely to everyone as the LBP game is one of the strong points of the PS3. LBP2 looks very fun and it’s nice to know that the company in question are getting a sequel to their game. LBP dissapeared to be replaced with a talk on Playstation Plus. Early demos, shows, news, etc. Sound familiar? And yet they felt the need to still mock Microsoft for Xbox Live. DICE went on to show more Medal of Honour, which certainly looks pretty good, but in a market that is being saturated with war games it remains to be seen whether MoH can do anything better than the rest.
Dead Space 2 was next on scene and also looked very impressive and scary! As a fan of Dead Space 1 it’s good to see another game come out, and hopefully it will be just as exciting and frightening as the first. Then came the surprise, in sort of the same way of a surprise punch to the face. Portal 2 on Playstation 3, with Gabe Newell presenting it! Given Gabe’s extremely negative comments towards Sony, it was perhaps more of a surprise he was on stage than Portal 2 was coming to PS3. He did not look happy at all to be there, and I can’t say I blame him. Sony spun the news of Portal 2 coming to the playstation some ridicolous rubbish that it would be the best valve game on any console. Doesn’t say much really given the PC is the true home of Valve games.
Gabe scuttled off stage as quickly as he came on, perhaps not wanting to stay to long at a Sony conference less he explode in rage. Another montage, a couple of things here and there and on to GT5, finally getting released in November. Given how well Forza has did for the past couple of years since GT5 has been developed, it will be interesting to see whether GT can pull off knocking the crown off Forza. The conservative nature of the GT series means they’ve only just recently implemented collision detection and damage, and the license system that is infamous in the GT series may not go down well anymore in a hotbed of racing games that can be fun as well as simulative. All remains to be seen.
The show ended on a highlight, Twisted Metal. It started off so well, but started to go a bit poor both graphically and gameplay wise the further the show for it went in. Indeed by the end of it, it felt pretty “meh”. Sony didn’t throw out any new toys to play with at the audience, or give them free stuff. This is Sony after all. In the end the conference did well in that they didn’t overrun an unneccessary showing of what the Move can do, but the insults, montages and general blind arrogance of Sony always irk me, and to start off a conference showing a feature that requires several thousands pounds to actually use just goes to show what sort of demographic Sony are aiming for.
Overall this years E3 has felt mediocre all round. It says alot that Nintendo pulled off the best show, despite effectively relying on old products made sequel (and Epic Mickey, which looked pretty good). Just as E3 started a pretty poor run up, it went and ended pretty quietly. Gamers will be pleased with the offerings of games on show like Bulletstorm, but this lacklustre year could have been so much better all round.
Categories: Gaming
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