E3 Media and Business Summit

by Angie Quidim/Additional coverage by Adam Hartley at Techraider.com

This year’s Sony conference was held at the famed Shrine Auditorium and it was packed. 

Resistance 2: They talked about tis game alot and the graphics for this game are nothing less than stunning.  But is it the same old game with just more stuff to kill?  Ted Price the President of Insomniac games pretty much made statements regarding the 8 player online co-operative play and the 60 player online multiplayer mode. This game is defintely brilliant no browns and not too much gray.  Can FPS’s start to see the light of day?  the feel is like a vintage 50’s game kinda like Bioshock.

Little Big Planet :It’s social gaming and networking at its best.  “Play, Create and Share!”  Take the Mii creatiion from Nintendo and the Live network from Microsoft and you get this game.  Although it’s characters look sugary sweet, that doesnt mean that these characters dont have a fun sadistic side.. But its fun for the whole family.  This game promises to bring in more of a non gaming audience than the typical target market of male core gamers. 

I won’t bore you with the sales statistics since each company seems to alter the numbers their way to make their company stand out as the best gaming company of the year.  Can’t blame them as their stockholders are watching these conferences closely. 

I was unable to cover the rest of the conference this year but here is a rundown from techraider.com’s Adam Hartley what happened the rest of the time.

“The PlayStation brand is really hitting its stride,” said Tretton, warming to his theme at an E3 conference in which Sony announced, among other things, God of War III, a DC Universe MMO and a new 256-player Massive Action Game (yes, that’s the title!) for PS3, as well as new handheld titles Resistance Retribution and Super Stardust Portable for PSP.

PlayStation Network, new Ratchet

As of later this autumn, all PlayStation Network users will get a single sign-on, announces Tretton, adding that over 180 million pieces of content have been downloaded from PSN since the PS3 launched back in November 2006 in the US and Japan.

The next new game announced at E3 by Sony is Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty – described by the game’s producer as “a shorter game at a lower ($14.99) price” and by Tretton as “great entertainment for about the cost of a movie ticket.”

A number of other new and already announced downloadable games are also briefly demoed including titles such as Crash Commando, the (ludicrously un-PC) Fat Princess, PixelJunk Eden, Pain: Amusement Park, Flower, Siren: Blood Curse and RagDoll KungFu: Fists of Plastic.

Gran Turismo TV, Home, Movies

Petrolheads in the audience were clearly thrilled to hear that Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo pay-per-view TV service will be launching on 1st August, announced with plenty of footage of feted GT producer Kazunori Yamauchi racing Ferraris and suchlike.

No release date was forthcoming for PS3’s Home service, but Tretton at least thanks gamers for being patient, as he demos some of the game-themed spaces in Home.

Quickly moving on, Tretton is happy to announce that studio partners for PSN’s video download service already include Sony Pictures (obviously) Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner and Funimation.

Standard and High-def are now available for rental or sell-through TV starting from $1.99 for movie rentals up to $14.99 for purchases. Once downloaded you can seamlessly shift your TV or movie content from your PS3 or PC over to your PSP to watch on the go.

“The video store will be available tonight!” Tretton is clearly happy to announce.

PlayStation Portable, Resistance Retribution

As of this October Sony plans to offer a new PSP bundle, made up of the popular game Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, a silver PSP, 1GB Memory Stick, a UMD copy of movie National Treasure 2 and a voucher for the stylish puzzler Echochrome all for $199 (£100).

A genuine new PSP exclusive, Resistance Retribution is also announced, due for a spring 2009 release. Also announced was Patapon2 and Loco Roco2.

DC Universe online, 40GB PS3 scrapped

Jim Lee, director of the promising PS3 MMO DC Universe Online enthuses about his project, a game that features every DC superhero, winning the affection of the crowd as he tells them:

“This is really a dream project for me. When I was a kid, my parents wanted me to become a doctor and follow in my father’s footsteps. Meanwhile, I wanted to read comic books.”

Sony then announces that the 80GB PS3 – with the same functionality as the current 40GB model – is set to retail for $399 (£200), which can only mean that the current 40GB SKU is set to be phased out in future.

Jack Tretton follows this news by talking more about the “tremendous amount of support” SCE gets from its development partners and stressing that SCE’s own worldwide studios gives the company a competitive advantage with 23 PS3 exclusives (10 on Blu-ray disc and 13 on PSN).

God of War 3, Infamous, MAG

God of War 3 is announced for PlayStation 3 which, while not a major surprise, still manages to wow the gamers in the crowd. Following this well-received announcement, developer Sucker Punch’s open-world superhero title Infamous is demoed, with a release date of spring 2009 announced.

The final announcement at Sony’s E3 press conference comes from developer Zipper Interactive (of SOCOM fame) who present a game called MAG (Massive Action Game) set to feature 256-player battles.

Zipper’s Andy Beaudoin describes this PS3 exclusive: “MAG will deliver a sweeping battle experience using only real players… the game will be organised into 8-player squads, lead by people who are “proven” to be good leaders,” and is to feature a character advancement tree for gameplay longevity and character development. It’s an intensely ambitious game, which, so Sony assures us, could only be attempted on the PlayStation 3.

“If this is what year 2 of the PS3 lifecycle looks like, imagine what years 3 and beyond will look like,” says Tretton, as he closes Sony’s E3 2008 press conference.