Sony commence E3 extravaganza. Full conference report

In the very early hours of Tuesday morning (4 pm PDT), Sony Computer Entertainment blew the lid off their plans for the coming year, with the much hyped PlayStation 3 taking the majority share of time on stage.

The conference lasted for just under two hours, and a complete rundown of what happened can be seen below.

Conference proceedings

After a delayed start the conference finally got under way at just before 1am BST.

00:52: Kazuo Hirai. President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, took centre stage.

00:53: Kazuo Hirai. President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America: “Next generation doesn’t start until we say it does.”

00:56: PlayStation 2 to be supported for many, many more years to come, just like Sony did with the original PlayStation. 216 new PlayStation 2 titles due by the end of 2006.

00:58: Moved to talk about the PSP. 17.03 million units shipped worldwide. Almost a million units shipped per month of its life. Forecast of an addition 12 million units shipping this fiscal year.

01:00: PSP game reel shows a number of forthcoming titles. Killzone Liberation, LocoRoco, World Tour Soccer 2, Gangs of London, impress most amongst those on show.

01:02: Greatest hits for PSP. Title must have sold over 250,000 units and been on the market for at least nine months. First titles include Wipeout Pure, Hot Shots Golf, ATV Off-road Furry, Twisted Metal, and Ape Escape on the Loose. No Euro announcements made, with the games announced only for the North American market.

Sony plan to add Voice Over Ip, camera functionality and GPS functions to the PSP later this year. RSS video also planned for later in the year.

01:07: A video is played showing lots of people from all over the world talking about how much they love Sony and the PlayStation. It comes across as rather false and the people are clearly actors.

01:09: Talk moves to PlayStation 3. The main features of the system are reviewed, including the CELL, combined CD, DVD and Blu-ray drive, PSP link-up to PS3, and more. Nothing too extraordinary other than the Blu-ray.

01:12: It is announced that a Hard drive is to be included with every PlayStation 3 unit sold.

01:15: Playable PS3 titles to be shown in the conference and will be playable at Sony’s booth.

01:16: Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, takes stage.

01:17: Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of Gran Turismo, comes to the stage. A Gran Turismo prototype, Gran Turismo HD is to be demoed. The demo has been designed especially for E3 and is made using assets from GT4, but boosted into HD. The game is seen running at 1080p and at 60fps, with slick menus optimised for HD. Cars and bikes are included and can be seen on the vehicle selection screen.

A Tokyo track is demoed, but footage appears to be from a replay mode as some of the angles clearly aren’t playable. Actual footage doesn’t look all that superior to PlayStation 2 game, but it is clearly incredibly sharp.

Load times in GT4 are said to be in the range of 10-20 seconds, but load times in GT HD are cut to 2-3 seconds. The actual loading in the demo seemed to take a little longer, but was still fast.

01:24: The older GT titles are looked at to demonstrate the gulf in resolution each game runs at. Gran Turismo 4 sadly wasn’t shown running in its high resolution mode.

01:26: The Grand Canyon track shown in GT HD, and while looking sharp, didn’t really act as a great demo to show the power of the new Sony System.

01:29: Beta testing for Gran Turismo 4 online is to start in US and Japan soon after E3. World of GT will “explode” according to GT creator. Next-gen GT hoped to be released sooner than the 1.5 years it took GT3 title to hit the PlayStation 2. A release as close as possible to the launch of the PlayStation 3 is the plan.

01:31: Eye of Judgement, a new game using EyeToy is shown. It seems to be an augmented reality card game that features monsters battling each other. Phil Harrison plays the boss card and a duck that breathes fire and shoots water tackles the monsters. Impressive tech, but the demo is underwhelming.

01:34: Kazuo Hirai took the stage once more. Online and network functionality was the new topic if discussion. A Friends list, account management, player profile, video chat and more offered all to be offered as part of the online PS3 service. All basic services provided free of charge.

A PSP shown running Ridge Racer, the original title for the PSOne, as an example of downloadable PlayStation titles that will be available for the PSP. The game is shown running in 4:3 with boarders at the side. The image can be altered to fit the screen.

01:40: The interface for PlayStation 3 shop is shown. SingStar is shown for PS3 as an example of the shop being built into the game.

01:42: An iTunes like service is shown for SingStar. A song is bought and then loaded in the game in a simple way, but no pricing is revealed.

01:44: Game Republic show Genji 2. The game is based on famous battles that took place in ancient Japan. Character models look impressive, but there aren’t that many on screen, and the fixed camera seems to be causing some problems. The Crab boss looks visually impressive, but on the whole the game seems a little underwhelming.

01:49: Formula 1 shown for PS3 and looks nice. More interesting is the PSP being used as a wing mirror. It looks like a novel idea, but one that might be a nightmare to set up.

01:51: Heavenly Sword is demoed by Ninja Theory. The animation looks impressive and the action is brutal. The game is easily the most visually impressive title on show at the conference so far. The demo is set entirely in an arena, but lots of enemies are in the battle. First impressions reveal a title that seems to have a Prince of Persia crossed with God of War feel to it. Definitely a game to keep an eye on.

01:54: A video of other PS3 titles is shown. Lair from Factor 5 looks smart but no gameplay footage is shown. Getaway from team Soho looks incredible if it’s real-time. A surprise game name AFRIKA is shown and seems to be some kind of wildlife game. Everybody’s Golf captures the look of the series, but with much enhanced visuals. Monster Kingdom is revealed and appears to be some kind of supernatural action title.

02:00: A trailer for London Studio’s Eight Days is shown. It’s a great trailer that seems to mix in-game footage with cutscenes, but whether ‘in-game’ sections were real remains to be seen. It looked highly dubious.

02:03: a Naughty Dog game with no title is show. It looks like a cross between Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia. It is again rather debateable if the footage was in fact in-game.

02:05: Resistance Fall of Man is demoed by Insomniac. In-game footage of the FPS looks solid. The war-torn city setting looks smart but doesn’t seem all that more impressive than what can be seen on a high-end PC. 32 player online support is announced, with more details to be revealed as the release date approaches.

02:10: Third-party titles shown for PS3 in a video reel. Assassin’s Creed, Gundam, Coded Arms, Ridge Racer, Brothers in Arms Hell’s Highway, Tekken 6, Sonic the Hedgehog, Virtua Tennis 3, Virtua Fighter 5, Stranglehold, Fatal Inertia, Blade Storm 100 Years War and Armored Core 4 all shown.

02:15: Larry Probst of EA takes stage and introduces others for stage demos.

EA Canada show an NBA Live PS3 demo. The demo features a comparison between PS2 and PS3 versions of the game, highlighting the difference between the level of animation. The PlayStation 3 version will feature full 360-degree movement but the short gameplay demo at the end doesn’t seem like a huge leap over the Xbox 360 version of NBA Live.

Tiger Woods is used to demo new character modelling system. The model looks incredible, but isn’t shown in an in-game environment. No course or scenery is shown, just the character model. It’s still an unbelievable tech demo, but in-game models like that seems unlikely.

Need for Speed Carbon, Army of Two, Medal of Honor Airborne shown in demo reel, along with a couple of EA Sports titles.

02:25: Final Fantasy XIII shown for PS3. The trailer looks great, but with the game probably a long way off, it’s hard to believe that what is seen isn’t mainly CGI.

02:28: Metal Gear Solid 4 video is show, running from PS3 hardware. The trailer looks incredibly good, but doesn’t show any gameplay footage, being comprised of cutscenes Still, if it is indeed running in real-time, it’s a new visual benchmark for this generation of games. When we’ll finally get the play the game isn’t revealed.

02:31: Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, takes stage. An announcement regarding the controller is in the offing and comes moments later. The new controller looks near identical to a Dual Shock 2 controller, but inside it’s very different. Six degrees of freedom is built into it allowing you to move it around and play games in a new way. It will be packed into every PS3. A duck demo used to show off the controller’s abilities.

02:37: Warhawk is demoed with the new controller. Visually the game looks impressive, with some stunning clouds and a detailed environment, but if anything the new controller seems to hinder gameplay, highlighted by a slightly unplanned landing at the end of the demo.

02:40: The PlayStation 3 release date and price is revealed. The system will cost 59,800 yen in Japan on November 11 with a 20GB HD. A 60 GB model will also be available with a price to be determined by Japanese retailers. In the US the 20GB PS3 will cost $499 on November 17, while the 60GB model will set you back $599. In Europe the system will also release on November 17 for 499 Euros for 20 GB package and 599 Euros for 60GB package.

That concluded the Sony press conference, with the audience told that playable PlayStation 3 games were available after the show.