Sony Press Conference Impressions 2

When we left off Sony had just wrapped up the Move section of their press conference, having already shown off some great games as well as a certain Mr. Butler. Next on the lineup was the PSP; kicking off with Marcus, the new face of the PSP.

Naval: The new KB.

Colin: That the kid from Role Models

Thomas: no PSP2

Colin: That kid is good

David: more great advertising

Blair: I don’t know if I like Marcus.

Lewis Gaston: i like marcus

Rob: I like him

Following Marcus we had another montage, roughly the 5 millionth of the event by my count, some brief comments on the PSN, and then we moved onto that fantastic looking LittleBigPlanet 2. We all got terribly excited when Alex Evans seemed to say ‘The Sixth Axis’ rather than ‘The Six Axis’, it’s nice to imagine that it wasn’t just a slip of the tongue.

David: give us charts!

Greg: By making it ever more about creation, are they making it ever more niche?

Kris: Depth of creation looks good

Peter: Ou, that looks liike Rocket Riot but not quite as fun.

Greg: LBP2… rip off every other 2D game you’ve played.

Peter: roughly how many minutes before Mario 1-1 is made?

Kris: An RTS in 24 hours is impressive

Colin: Looks better than the 1st then

Following up with the impressive creative showing from Media Molecule’s adorable title we had more on the PSN, specifically the Playstation+ announcement. With the confirmation of months of rumours about the service what did we think of the confirmed features?

David: on top of free one. Now sell it to me

Greg: $100s of value during the year.

Kris: How are patches a pay feature?

Chris: Discounts? Does that mean they’ll stop the normal weekly discounts?

Lorcan: Wipeout HD free?!

Peter: ah, you only own it while you’re subscribing! That’s clever.

Naval: I just hope this isn’t country-specific, and we get screwed over and get PS+ next year

Thomas: would seem just for US at the mo due to inclusion of Qore

Everyone seemed pretty excited about the announced features of PlayStation+, particularly with a three month trial. Sony seem to have got this almost spot on with what people want, the only thing curiously missing was cross game chat.

So with a new feature of PSN announced it seems to be time to get back to the games. Tretton makes way for EA to take to the stage, and it’s time to see Medal of Honor and Dead Space 2.

Lee: EA! Here we go

Lee: MoH exclusive content

Lee: That is an AWESOME BEARD!

Colin: Best Beard of E3

Thomas: so excluive map and character, whoop de dooo

David: game looks fantastic

Chris: ooh, more jam on the screen

David: dead space 2

Lee: Crowd LIKING the Dead Space

Peter: Chris made me buy the first Dead Space and it was brilliant.

Colin: Man that looks good

Thomas: oooh nice, HD Extraction with Move! Day 1 for me!

Greg: EA and Sony sitting in a tree…

With the inclusion of exclusive content for the PS3, showing up at Sony’s press conference and using only PS3s to demo content at EA’s own press conference it seems that the relationship between EA and Sony is very strong right now.

Moving swiftly on it’s time for what, for my money, was the biggest bombshell of the night. After being announced by GLaDOS Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director of Valve Corporation, took to the stage.

David: PORTAL!!! HELL!!!! YEAH!!!!

Colin: Its Gabe!

Kris: Ok, so they get the best surprise award

David: good sense of humour

Lee: Pretty outspoken ?

Chris: Awesome for PS3 though, missing piece in the jigsaw

Lorcan: After the comments he made it takes a LOT to be able to stand up on the stage of the people he was dissing

Colin: Steam for PS3? Awesome

Lorcan: The BEST version!?

Chris: Show stealer!

Lee: Hahha… differences behind us

Blair: I can safely say: THIS WAS A TRIUMPH.

Greg: Portal 2, with the “Steam Cloud” aiding multiplayer.

David: and auto updates

After the time that Peter bought a whole crate of Jammy Dodgers and Wagon Wheels to TSA Towers this is the most excited I’ve ever seen the staff, and it certainly was a significant boost for Sony. As Chris said Valve’s game were certainly the missing piece for the PS3, getting the renowned developer to go multi-platform again is certainly a coup for Sony. The inclusion of some of Steam’s features on the PS3 may actually be bigger than the announcement of Portal 2 itself.

Another montage and Gran Turismo 5 trailer, both of which didn’t draw any huge deluge of comments from staff aside from the announcement of GT’s release date, and we had a short trailer for inFamous 2. Sadly there wasn’t much discussion about this either, it seems if you want real discussion you need a play through rather than a trailer.

Just as it seemed the conference was on its way to wrapping up we had Sony’s ‘and one more thing’ announcement, Twisted Metal. Finally there was something huge to talk about.

David: TWISTED METAL!!!!

Naval: The music sounds like an ice cream truck…

David: Theres a van onstage!!!

Chris: WOW Go Jaffe, great teaser!!!!

Lewis Gaston: Jaffe = biggest liar ever

Naval: But wow, he really did lie.

David: 2011

Rob: PS3 exclusive

Greg: Another game with helicopters.

Naval: I wonder what David will spout on Twitter… xD

Rob: wow, did you see that house go down? it just vanished.

Thomas: 2-4 player splitscreen

Lee: It’s pretty rough

Rob: hopefully because it’s early code…

And that was the end of the conference. So time to get the wrap up from the staff. How did we feel it went down?

David: awesome conference

Peter: what, don’t they know you’re supposed to close a conference by giving shit away now?

Naval: I would have loved a bit more :/

Lorcan: I think I would have enjoyed a little more from Sony franchises on that

Chris: Hmmm, highlight for me was KB, no games blew me away, only TM as a surprise

David: Only TM? Portal 2?!

Lee: Portal 2 was a surprise for me

Chris: oh yeah, portal 2 was a surprise

Rob: Portal 2 was an amazing thing

Colin: I really enjoyed that conference, got everythign I really wanted out of it.

Naval: Still mega awesome though. As you can guess, highlight was Portal 2.

Lorcan: I feel like it could have ended on more of a bang. Also, remember when everyone was going on about Mass Effect 2? I was hoping something might come from that

Lee: But having Gabe there. It’s a giant sign that the industry is changing

Lee: Great conference … hit all the right spots

Colin: Killzone looked utterly brilliant, LBP looked good as did everything else

Lee: It’s going to be a great year

Colin: KB was superb and Move looked good.

David: Better than last year, but that’s probably down to the leaks

Chris: Portal was a big win, and TM was a surprise, but missed Agent, Starhawk, The Last guardian

Greg: Well done Sony. Would have liked to see TLG though. Now off to finish my Nintendo write up. Bye.

Rob: It was a surprise to see Gabe Newell appeaer on stage, and he seemed nervous to be there after everything he’s said. Nevertheless, Portal 2 was the biggest shocker for me, and seeing the firts trailer at the Sony conference must show Sony and Valvue have been making up for dissagreements. KB was amazing. Nothing like ubi’s attempt with Joel.

Blair: rewatching Portal bit

Chris: thats the highlight of the sony presser for me

Blair: amazing

And there you have it, Sony’s conference as we saw it live. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed an insight into the insanity of the way the staff think. Hopefully we’ll be back with more of this in a year. Enjoy the rest of E3!