Sony shows lots of games at E3 press briefing

Rounding off this year’s pre-E3 press briefings tonight was Sony. With three systems available in the marketplace they had an awful lot to cover, so it was no surprise to see a lot of games. We also got a look at the new PSP and Sony’s further development of the Home social networking service.

Games for the PS2 and PSP were largely glossed over, but the big first announcement came in the form of a smaller, lighter PSP, but it wasn’t the complete redesign many had predicted. The smaller handheld is almost the same feature wise, but features faster load times, extended battery life and the ability to view content on a TV screen.

With the new PSP revealed talk moved to the PlayStation Network (PSN). The service currently has 2 million users worldwide and has seen over 20 million downloads since launch. Over 80 games and game packs are due to hit the PSN by March 2008.

A number of these games were shown, with the outstanding looking Echochrome being the standout title. A puzzle game that uses impossible drawings and switches in perspective to create tricky game worlds that must be navigated. WipEout HD was finally confirmed, Pain was showcased, and Warhawk and SOCOM Confrontation were revealed as PSN and Blu-ray titles.

Sony’s Home service for the PS3 played a big part in the whole presentation, and new details were revealed by Phil Harrison, head of Sony Worldwide Studios. The service is on track for release this autumn and a new Home Square area was shown, along with a number of areas that can be bought by players. Some live blogging features were also revealed, Harrison showing how a picture he took with his phone was automatically uploaded to Home.

The ability to get into groups and launch multiplayer games from within Home was also revealed, with a new track for Motorstorm being used to demonstrate the new feature. SingStar made an appearance too, with the trailer being played inside Phil’s virtual apartment.

Things then quickly moved to the PlayStation 3, with news that NCsoft will be creating online games exclusively for the PSN (ps3 and PSP). Two more exclusives followed, with Haze from Ubisoft and Unreal Tournament 3 both being exclusive to the PlayStation 3 this Holiday season.

No Sony E3 conference would be complete without a Metal Gear Solid game, and Hideo Kojima was on hand to show the very latest trailer of Metal Gear Solid 4; a game that was once again confirmed to be PlayStation 3 exclusive. No gameplay footage was shown, with in-game cinemas once again having to suffice, but Kojima will be playing the game at an event next week. We won’t be seeing the game this year, but it’ll be launching simultaneously worldwide in early 2008.

With exclusives being the order of the day, Phil Harrison then introduced a series of exclusive first-party titles for the PS3, all of which we’d seen before. Big hitters Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Heavenly Sword, LittleBigPlanet and Uncharted all looked great, but a few new games were also shown. Infamous from Sly Cooper developer Sucker Punch looked intriguing and a trailer for Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 5 Prologue confirmed rumours of the game’s existence.

Harrison ended things with more Killzone 2, with the footage being largely what we’d already seen in the trailer released earlier today, rounding off a thorough if rather unexciting presentation. A few gameplay demos would have livened things up, but it’s clear that Sony has plenty of quality due before Christmas. If forced to Judge I’d give Microsoft’s presentation the slight edge, but for hardcore gamers both MS and Sony seem to have a lot more to offer this year than the casual seeking Nintendo.