PHOTO BLOG: Sony Press Conference – E3 2011
Aside from a brief admission of failure with regards to the PSN debacle, the Sony press conference, held at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, was focused on one thing and one thing above all else: games. Whether for the Vita, the PS3, or even the PSP, Sony drove home the fact that they are the console to beat when it comes to what games they offer, where they offer them, and why you should make a Sony platform your gaming console of choice. They also were pushing 3D, once again, hard and fast. Sure, they were pulling that trick on a 70-foot wide screen (I wonder if they borrowed it from Jack Tretton’s house?) on the highest end Sony Real 3D tech that money can buy. Even so, seeing Resistance 3 in 3D makes me care about that technology more than I thought I did.
Speaking of the Vita, I’m excited to see that Sony is not making the mistake that Nintendo with the 3DS…by actually putting out games at launch. So far we know there’s a Wipeout game, an Uncharted game, a ModNation Racers game, a Diablo/Torchlight clone in Ruin, and a Little Big Planet all coming to the Vita when it counts most. It also doesn’t hurt that the Vita demos during the press conference went off with barely a hitch. There might have been a small issue with the sound during the Street Fighter vs Tekken demo, but really that’s nothing to complain about when the finer details like the front and back touchscreens (and holy smokes what a sexy ‘lil screen ’tis), the control sticks, and the motion controls all seemed to work as promised. It’s also worth noting that the PS Vita is a beefy little system, for sure.
If there’s one thing I’m glad Sony didn’t try to push to hard, it was Move. While the Move had a large presence on the show floor, as well as a few mentions in the press conference, Move was, understandably, placed behind the Vita and the PS3 Triple-A titles in Sony’s line up this year (for good reason, I’d wager). While there may be many people who like the Move, and some who’d argue that it actually works better than that of the competition, it clearly hasn’t had the staying power that Sony would have hoped. Nor does it seem like they want to integrate it into every single aspect of their interactive experience in the way that Microsoft feels it’s obligated to do (because 10 million sold doesn’t lie, right?)
All in all, the Sony conference was what people expect a conference to be. It was informative, it got people jazzed up about the products, it told us about things coming out sooner rather than later, and it had a little bonus for all the people in attendance: an opportunity to jump up on stage and play everything that’d be on the show floor a day early. And who doesn’t want to play Starhawk or Uncharted 3 while rocking out to Mix Master Mike an Jane’s Addiction? (Okay, maybe this guy). While it was extremely disappointing, though entirely understandable, that the line for the Vita was as long inside the press conference as it would be in the South Hall the following day, getting a head start on what we’d all be hearing about and seeing during the course of E3 was certainly a nice way of putting a cap on the evening. Then again it might have been the free food and booze, which didn’t stop flowing all night.
Jeez, Sony. You started and ended the night with open bars. If you’re goal was to get us all liquored up and a little happy for E3…well, son-of-a-bitch it worked.
We’ll be reporting more in depth on all of the Sony related goodies we saw over the course of the week. In the mean time, be sure to check out all the snapshots we grabbed from outside, inside, and around the Sony press conference!
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