The Electronic Entertainent Expo of 2009 has passed and many gaming, tech, and news sites along with analysts have debated on whose E3 presentation was the strongest. Many point to Microsoft’s conference with the inclusion of The Beatles surviving and the Natal as the best of E3. Some point to Nintendo as either first or second place, but most point to Sony as third.
Why was Sony third? I think it was because Sony was not out to make a spectacle of itself. Remember, this E3 was a 75% return to the E3′s of yesteryear. Sony did not need to shout and awe, the press conference felt more of an informational meeting. More “This is what we’re going to do in the next year, and here are some of the games coming out for our products.”
And you know what? I am fine with that. I sat through the Sony Press Conference watching all the videos and hearing all the speeches. I saw the motion control tech demo and I was impressed. The controllers were sensitive enough to write legible letters.
Sony did well enough to announce new titles, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for PSP and The Last Guardian, still PlayStation exclusive, appeared solid in video form. I think the blunder of the pre-E3 announcement of the PSPGo did effect the overall feeling of the conference, but more than the leak of information was the disappointment of the price point.
Announcing the price at $249, the original price of the PSP-1000 is a horrible choice. Not because it costs less to produce which equals more profit or even the fact that Sony does not have the digital distribution service up yet; the decision of the $249 price point has to be a direct comparison to the iPod Touch or iPhone.
Sony does not produce products on the same aesthetic level as Apple can, short of hiring the same design firm to work on Sony products. With that $249 price point, the saturation of the PSPGo with gamers is not secure. A better choice would be to plant it in between the PSP-3000 standalone and the various PSP bundles. Possibly a $180 price for a standalone model. But Sony has until before October 1st to decide if the $249 price point will stick or if this is a marketing scheme for the fall quarter?
As for the PlayStation 3, Sony is slowly building the library for the console. Like the PlayStation 2, the quality of titles is increasing with each year the system is out. UnCharted 2 looks amazing, the single player demo at the press conference was shock and awe at the amount of action and animation during each second. MAG could be a great PSN community builder, Killzone 2‘s multiplayer is fun, but a title by Zipper could be a consistent product for Sony on the PSN.
Obviously the PlayStation Network needs to grow, and fostering independent developers is the way to go. By releasing exclusive content, the PSN will grow in its own direction away from the comparisons to Xbox Live. The inclusion of Facebook and Twitter to Xbox Live feels gimmicky and unnecessary, but with the amount of users using Live, even a 15% user base will be huge.
At the end of the press conference, I came away with hope that Sony will put the money into branching the PlayStation brand. With six months to go until the end of the year and during the winter which will be Q4 for publishers and developers; there will probably be many surprises that were not announced at E3 this year.
Sony may be known as the king of the last console war, but as the underdog of this current generation will create better games and smarter products. Before the holiday season, there will be a lot more announcements so all of the statements made during E3 could actually be vaporware.
Video from the author’s own camera at E3. We got cool writers, yeah?
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