Is there anything Sony won't rip-off?

Sony held their E3 press conference today to, I'm guessing, the excitement of many gamers worldwide. Obviously the main focus was to show off what the PS3 can actually do. I'll give Sony some credit - what they showed did look good... but only if it was real time. As of right now, I can't tell. I have to wait for IGN to host their HD quality video before I'll be able to tell.

Sony started off their conference like they always do - with a bunch of bullshit. PS2 is so great 'cause it sold all these millions. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we all know you sold a lot of crap to a lot of stupid people. Sometimes you sold awesome games, but they were never markted to the stupid people. The stupid people are missing out on great games.

Anyway, Sony then started going on about their PSP and how it is "unrivaled". Well, if unrivaled means getting its ass kicked 10 times over and then getting /spit on while their down by the Nintendo DS then Sony is correct. But for those of us who are in reality, the PSP is tanking. The UMD format has failed and believe it or not, the handheld market still shows that quality games rules over graphics quality. I wonder why this doesn't also apply to the home console market.


The first PlayStation 3 game Sony showed off was Gran Turismo HD. But before you get your hopes up, please note that Kazunori Yamauchi specifically said that Polyphony took Gran Turismo 4 and upgraded the graphics. That tells me one thing - GT HD is nothing but a cheap lame-ass port of a lame PS2 game. Polyphony Digital has really gone downhill over the last 5 years. It's a shame really...

An interesting demo using the next EyeToy was shown next. Basically you lay down cards on a grid and the EyeToy will "read" the cards and display creatures on screen. Hand motions will then instruct those creatures. If they wanted to, Wizards of the Coast could make a pretty neat Magic the Gathering video game with that technology.

Skipping the old trailers from last year and the usual garbage EA had to show...


Final Fantasy XIII looks very pretty. Look carefully though, as usual Square-Enix mixes pre-rendered video and actual gameplay. Unless I'm wrong and the PS3 more powerful than the render-farm Square used to make Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. If the FFXIII trailer was all real-time, then that's some mighty raw power the PS3 is packing. I still have my doubts though.



What PlayStation launch is complete without showing off a new Metal Gear, in this case, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Kojima Productions always out does themselves. It's really insane how much more effort they put into their games than everyone else. Too bad I won't be able to play MGS4 for many years...


Because the price of the PS3 is $499 (with 20GB harddrive) and $599 (with 60GB harddrive). OMG WTF! Is it just me or is Sony asking a lot of money? Also, what is the need to have two versions of the PS3? If you look at the pictures above, you can clearly see that the one of the left is the gimp Ps3. It's missing the HDMI port and according to IGN, it's also missing several other features. That is fucking lame. Having two separate system packages at launch will only lead to confusion, customer dis-satisfaction, and low supplies of a console that's already low in supply. Didn't Sony learn anything from the Xbox 360 launch fiasco?


Sony yet again shows that they have no imagination of their own as they showed off the new PS3 controller. Gladly, it looks like the tried and true PS2 controller and is wireless. Oddly enough, if you get the gimp package, the controller doesn't have rumble feature. The real kicker is that the PS3 controller can also sense 6 motions, or in other words, has spacial controls. Gee, I wonder where Sony got that idea? I'll see how this hacked spacial controller works when I attend E3 this Friday. My thought is that Sony is playing catch up to Nintendo but from the description, the PS3 controller has no where near the spacial ability of the Wii. Sony also ripped off Microsoft's Xbox-button, as you can see.

Overall, I felt the press conference was boring but there were some good surprises. I also appreciate Sony's acknowledgement that Nintendo is on the right path.