E3 2011: Sony Press Conference

WOW! It’s after 1am and my mind is still spinning from Sony’s conference. With the exception of two or three hiccups I think they did a great job of talking about the games and introducing us to their new portable PlayStation Vita. While there was a bit of a focus on 3D gaming and Move integration you know that neither are full mandatory (with exception to Move only titles of course) for most of the games coming out on the PS3 which is a good thing. And boy did they show off a lot of games!

Games that were shown or mentioned to have some type of PS3 content exclusivity; Resistance 3, Uncharted 3, Twisted Metal: Head On, Bioshock Infinite, Star Trek, Battlefield 3, SSX, Infamous 2, and Dust 514. Sony also announced some more HD remakes with God of War: Origins (PSP games GoW: Chains of Olympus & Ghost of Sparta upgraded for the PS3) and ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection. On the PlayStation Move front a couple of games were shown using the globular glowing controllers either to great effect (Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest, made by the studio that did Sports Champions) or with a “Meh” effect (NBA 2K11). The biggest suprise of a game getting some type of Move support was Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite. Producer Ken Levine recounted some very honest and candid initial reservations he had about the PS Move several months ago but said that after meeting with Sony and trying out the hardware it got him and the team at Irrational thinking about how to use Move controls in the game without sacrificing traditional controller gameplay. While he didn’t say or show much after that it was still a pretty interesting revelation. And before Levine left the stage he also mentioned that another PlayStation product that would offer his studio the chance to expand the Bioshock universe, the PlayStation Vita.

While we all knew that Vita was going to be the name (and hoped that it really wasn’t) it was officially announced at the show. Although it still sounds like a the name of a sports drink the things this system is offering will make many gamers overlook that naming faux pas. Sporting dual analog sticks, an amazing 5″ OLED screen, WiFi and 3G (some models) enabled, front and back touch screen/pad, and front & rear facing cameras with a good looking line up of games. PlayStation Vita just may be the new must have hand held gaming device this year. And to top it all off Sony did the right thing by pricing the WiFi only model at $249 (USD) and the 3G/WiFi model at $299. The one misstep made in the Vita announcement is the partnership with AT&T to be the 3G carrier for the Vita but if you already have a 3G phone that has WiFi tethering then that would work for the WiFi model to allow gaming anywhere. Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Mod Nation Racers were demoed on the Vita and they looked great using the traditional and touch controls. Another game that was shown on the Vita was a dungeon crawler game called Ruin which looked decent but the most impressive feature of the game was the ability to save the game to the PS Cloud and continue playing the game on the PS3. Street Fighter x Tekken was also shown for the Vita and it was revealed that PlayStation would get the exclusive character of Cole from Infamous in the game.

I know there are other little things I might be forgetting but we will cover more specific titles in separate articles. At the end of the conference this was the kind of show Sony needed to put out. After the lousy month they had with the PSN breach (which the graciously and humbly apologized for once again) and the constant catch up they have been playing with Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony has finally got it’s balance and is looking to try and regain it’s dominance at the top of the gaming hill. Let’s hope Sony can keep the momentum going throughout E3 and the months to come. Keep an eye out for more E3 coverage from all of us here at Bifuteki.