11:56 Matt Peckham: Here we go… We’re kicking off 5 minutes early, looks like.
11:57 Matt Peckham: Sony’s launching with a montage of games, lots of Move shots, Iron Man, LBP, Wolverine, more Move peripherals. And boy is it loud!
11:57 Chris Holt: Predicting there will be something in 3D. Me: Oh wait, I should put these on now? 🙂
11:58 Matt Peckham: Now I’m wishing I had a 3D Macbook Pro. Get on that, would you Apple?
11:59 Matt Peckham: Jack Tretton, President and CEO just took the stage. “I feel like I’m at a U2 concert.”
11:59 Matt Peckham: “Going to be a lot of action, a lot of product, no need for ponchos.” Nice jibe at Microsoft’s silly Cirque event.
12:00 Matt Peckham: Some ridiculous “We love you Jack!” calls from audience fanboys. What’s up with that?
12:00 Matt Peckham: He’s talking about Move now, talking about it’s transformative power, vision, all the usual buzz words.
12:01 Matt Peckham: Jack’s name-checking franchises, SOCOM, Uncharted, God of War, etc. Exclusive call-out.
12:02 Matt Peckham: Sony’s Kazuo Hirai is on stage to talk about 3D.
12:03 Chris Holt: Innovation!!!!
12:04 Matt Peckham: Now we’re talking about the 3D update, which we already knew about. Every PS3 is 3D-updateable. Yes, go on please…
12:04 Matt Peckham: Will 2010 really be remembered as the year PS3 brought authentic 3D to the living room?
12:04 Matt Peckham: Here we go… Killzone 3. We’re getting a Killzone 3 demo.
12:05 Chris Holt: No applause on these titles. Are people being impolite or are they just unimpressed?
12:06 Matt Peckham: We’ve just put our 3D glasses on, and here we go with a live 3D demo of Killzone 3.
12:06 Matt Peckham: Are we (the press) way too jaded? Perhaps.
12:07 Matt Peckham: The 3D depth is intense, very much like the early shots in Avatar, where they’re waking up from the cryo-tube-things.
12:08 Matt Peckham: Killzone 3: “Facing tougher, scarier enemies than ever before.”
12:09 Matt Peckham: The live player’s jetpacking through a frozen environment, snow particulate flying everywhere. The game looks beautiful.
12:10 Matt Peckham: The demo’s impressive to watch, but I’m not sure what it’ll be like to play. The depth “box” makes it difficult to concentrate on reticule alignment.
12:10 Matt Peckham: Strong applause ringing out for the first part of the demo. And now…there’s more!
12:11 Matt Peckham: We’re jetting around with a gatling gun, shells spitting out the sides. You can really sense the heft of the gun in front of you with the 3D effect.
12:12 Matt Peckham: It’ll also be fully Move-compatible at launch.
12:14 Matt Peckham: Here’s no surprise: Gran Turismo 5 will be available in full 3D.
12:21 Matt Peckham: Sorry folks, a complete and total failure of the Verizon wireless card. We’re back now.
12:21 Matt Peckham: Nothing missed – just Jack using lots of buzzy adjectives to describe Sony’s Move presence. Peter Dille is now on stage stalking about the Move’s makeup.
12:22 Matt Peckham: The lighting emitted from the Move controller is tracked by the camera to create the most precise experience ever. (Claim.)
12:22 Chris Holt: Aside from that baseball flying toward you, I feel like the 3D visuals were unimpressive.
12:22 Comment From Dominic Any chance they drop the PS3 will actually drop in price?
12:23 Matt Peckham: Stand by on pricing. I doubt it, but stand by for announcements later in the show.
12:23 Comment From MKlwr And here I thought there was nothing interesting going on…
12:23 Comment From Bryan How does the atmosphere compare to Microsoft’s presentation?
12:23 Matt Peckham: The atmosphere, so far, is on par with the Microsoft show. I think the media’s a bit less charged, but that’s part of Sony coming in last, order-wise.
12:24 Matt Peckham: We’re watching snips of interviews with Move developers, they’re actually reasonably articulate.
12:25 Comment From Richard Any PSP new?
12:25 Matt Peckham: No PSP news…yet. Stand by…
12:26 Chris Holt: ‘We’re not trying to stir the pot’. Yeah, except for all the shots at Wii!
12:26 Matt Peckham: Sony’s about to show us Move games we’ve never seen before, apparently.
12:26 Matt Peckham: The first game’s called Sorcery.
12:27 Comment From Jackson Dungeon Siege 3 demo yet?
12:29 Matt Peckham: Okay, we’re watching a Sony rep (dev?) demonstrating the game. It’s split, with the demonstrator on the left and the game on the right.
12:29 Matt Peckham: The accuracy is really impressive. The audience is spontaneously clapping. Hardcore promise delivered?
12:29 Comment From Jacky I wonder if you’ll get a free PS3 after today 🙂
12:29 Matt Peckham: I doubt we’ll get anything free today. 🙂
12:30 Matt Peckham: He’s waving the wand around in circles and using it to create firestorms. Again, the precisions is notably ahead of anything we’ve seen from Microsoft or Nintendo.
12:32 Comment From steve jobs ps4?
12:33 Matt Peckham: We’ve moved on from Sorcery to PGA Tour 11. There’s Tiger, of course.
12:34 Matt Peckham: We’re watching someone demonstrate the fidelity, 1-to-1, of one of the Move controllers and an onscreen golf club.
12:35 Matt Peckham: The 1-to-1 movement looks like the real deal. He’s moving the Move controller inches to line up with the tee and it’s tracking it precisely, no lag or overlap or jitter.
12:36 Chris Holt: Insert Tiger Woods sex joke here.
12:37 Matt Peckham: This guy’s not playing too well, but doing a bang-up job demonstrating the fidelity of the Move controller.
12:37 Matt Peckham: He just putted the ball in. Looked like a slight bit of lag there.
12:38 Comment From hank 1-to-1 fidelity? in a Tiger game? nice one.
12:38 Matt Peckham: The Move functionality will be available as an update to Tiger Woods this fall.
12:38 Comment From Patrick This looks rather boring
12:38 Matt Peckham: It’s golf… What do you expect?
12:39 Matt Peckham: We’re looking at a third game: Heroes on the Move. Ratchet/Clank plus Jak and Daxter plus others, all in one game.
12:41 Matt Peckham: Dille’s doing a gigantic Coca-Cola promotion. This is weird. Everybody drink Coke! Diet Coke! Coke Zero! Sprite!
12:41 Chris Holt: This has been a pretty unimpressive lineup so far.
12:41 Matt Peckham: Kevin Butler, Sony’s humor guy, just took the stage. Big shout-outs from the audience.
12:43 Matt Peckham: Kevin Butler: “I LOVE GAMING.” “I love battles with a giant Greek god who may or may not be your father.”
12:43 Comment From hank how’s the crickets to applause ratio so far?
12:43 Matt Peckham: Applause meter: It’s the highest I’ve heard yet, the Microsoft Xbox 360 giveaway notwithstanding.
12:44 Chris Holt: This reminds me of the John Belushi speech in Animal House.
12:45 Matt Peckham: We’re in the midst of a zany Sony-sponsored comedy routine.
12:46 Matt Peckham: Only Kevin Butler could get the audience to applaud like that.
12:46 Matt Peckham: Okay, and that’s sayonara to Kevin. Can we get back to talking about games in a non-metaphorical sense please?
12:47 Matt Peckham: Move will be available in North American on September 19. Europe on September 15. Japan on October 21.
12:47 Matt Peckham: $50 for the PlayStation Move controller.
12:47 Matt Peckham: Move bundle = Eye, Sports Champion game, controller for $100.
12:49 Matt Peckham: Move bundle = Eye, Sports Champion game, controller for $100.
12:50 Matt Peckham: Bundle with system (controller, game, eye) for $400.
12:52 Matt Peckham: 40 Move titles available this holiday season.
12:52 Matt Peckham: 40 Move titles available this holiday season.
12:52 Matt Peckham: 40 Move titles available this holiday season.
12:53 Matt Peckham: We’re back.
12:53 Matt Peckham: We’re having some connectivity issues here. Verizon, thy name is mud.
12:54 Matt Peckham: Again, fortunate timing: We just watched a Move montage, and now we’re watching a comedy video with Kevin Butler.
12:54 Matt Peckham: We’re not seeing new games, new hardware, new price announcements, nothing as such…yet.
12:54 Comment From Patrick Did they say how many controllers can be used at once? As in 2 player boxing? 4 controllers?
12:54 Matt Peckham: You can use both controllers at once. For boxing, among others.
12:55 Comment From MKlwr That’s not a bad price point. Now start the countdown for MS to announce Kinnect’s price. 😛
12:55 Matt Peckham: Jack Tretton’s making a concerted effort to show the PSP as “the gamer’s platform.”
12:55 Chris Holt: PSP is for serious gamers.
12:56 Matt Peckham: Jack just announced (I think) InviZimals. There’s a camera on the top of the PSP in the ad. And we’re looking at God of War: God of Sparta now. Teaser trailer in progress.
12:57 Matt Peckham: I guess this means no PSP2. Again, we’re not really surprised. Word on the street was a PSP2 announcement wouldn’t come until later this year or next.
12:58 Matt Peckham: “We’ll see more than 70 new titles in total coming to the PSP by this fall.”
12:58 Matt Peckham: We’re watching a montage of PSP games now.
1:00 Chris Holt: They’re conceding the casual market in mobile gaming. Me: Possibly. This lineup’s definitely not doing it for me. But Nintendo’s 3DS–wait for my impressions later, since I played it after the Nintendo conference–looks fairly anomalous at this stage. The elephant in the room: Apple.
1:00 Matt Peckham: I think Sony and Nintendo may both be in serious trouble, once Apple turns up the heat with the iPhone 4G.
1:02 Matt Peckham: Oooo, don’t bring up The Tester Jack. Worst reality game show ever.
1:03 Matt Peckham: Now we’re back to PlayStation Home. Is that still going? Surprised, frankly.
1:03 Comment From MKlwr 70 new titles: 65 of them will be PS One games (I’m not complaining)
1:03 Comment From Matthew @Matt Peckham: No such thing as iPhone 4G. No 4G ability yet.
1:03 Matt Peckham: Sorry Matthew, iPhone 4. Slip of the keyboard!
1:04 Matt Peckham: We’re talking about LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, and Sony’s whole “play, create, share” angle.
1:04 Matt Peckham: Cue the LittleBigPlanet 2 demo!
1:06 Matt Peckham: They’re demonstrating various mini-games within LBP2. Four little guys (sack-things?) lined up, with four players tapping X-O-triangle-square buttons on the controller as the symbols rain down. Fastest tapper wins!
1:07 Matt Peckham: Another mini-game in LBP2: Looks like bumper cars, players smash into each other, though the mechanics are unclear.
1:08 Matt Peckham: And a third mini-game looks like Super Smash Bros.
1:09 Matt Peckham: You’ve heard of 24 Hour Comics? How about 24 Hour PSP games? They’re demoing games developers created in LBP2 with a 24 hour time limit.
1:10 Matt Peckham: And that’s the LBP2 demo, wrapped. Middling applause from the audience.
1:10 Comment From Hamsnibit Are these part of the game or are they showing stuff that can be creat?
1:10 Matt Peckham: The shots I’ve uploaded are all from mini-games that’ll be in LBP2.
1:11 Matt Peckham: PlayStation Plus. Just announced. The long rumored subscription service.
1:12 Matt Peckham: They’re teasing special access to movies, games, demos, etc. if you sign up for PlayStation Plus.
1:13 Matt Peckham: PlayStation Plus will cost $50 a year, if I heard that right, with optional short-term memberships, e.g. $17.99 for three months.
1:14 Matt Peckham: As stated previously by Sony, all of what you currently get from the PSN for free will remain free.
1:15 Matt Peckham: EA’s taken the stage, and they’re about to demo Medal of Honor with “all new content.”
1:17 Matt Peckham: We’re watching video of the game. If you’ve seen it in action before, you know how good it looks. Then again, you also already know *how* it looks. Not seeing anything new here.
1:17 Matt Peckham: It’s kind of wild, coming from Nintendo’s low-def convention to Sony’s high-def one, and realizing how dramatic the visual disparity is between these systems.
1:18 Matt Peckham: And now we’re unveiling an “all new multiplayer map.”
1:19 Comment From Patrick Are they that short on material that they are unveiling a map?
1:20 Matt Peckham: Multiplayer maps never go over well in decontextualized demos. Their value’s more about explicating their strategic and tactical merits. That never comes across well in a flashy demo.
1:20 Matt Peckham: Next up: Dead Space 2 for PS3.
1:21 Matt Peckham: We’re getting a live demo of Dead Space 2. Hold onto your lunchbuckets.
1:22 Matt Peckham: Isaac Clarke, the game’s protagonist (from the first) gets sucked through a bunch of airways in a spaceship of some sort, and now he’s battling with a big, messy, bloody necromorph.
1:23 Matt Peckham: Some middling applause for this demo. Dead Space was a very well-received game.
1:24 Matt Peckham: Dead Space 2 + Dead Space: Extraction for Move bundle announced.
1:25 Matt Peckham: And that’s a wrap for EA’s portion of the show.
1:25 Matt Peckham: Aha, Valve’s big surprise: Portal 2 for the PS3!
1:26 Matt Peckham: Yep, Gabe Newell is one stage (that’s him in the red shirt) and he just announced Portal 2 for the PS3.
1:27 Chris Holt: Gabe Newell is a funny, brilliant man. The only thing bigger than his genius is his mouth.
1:28 Chris Holt: Valve throwing in their lot with the PS3 is big news. Me: Indeed.
1:28 Comment From Grant How was the crowd response for Portal 2?
1:28 Matt Peckham: To Grant – Pretty strong.
1:28 Comment From bill W00T PORTAL!
1:28 Comment From Sam Is Portal 2 going to be a PS3 exclusive?
1:29 Matt Peckham: I didn’t hear him say “exclusive.”
1:29 Matt Peckham: Over to Square Enix. We’re watching a Final Fantasy XIV demo now. It looks like…well…you know…a Final Fantasy game. (This from a total Final Fantasy fanboy.)
1:29 Comment From bill i thought it was to be exclusive to 360 and PC untill now!
1:31 Chris Holt: FF14. Online. It’s still an online title. Darnit.
1:31 Matt Peckham: We’re watching a demo for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood now. You know, the intermediary between-AC2-and-AC3 game.
1:33 Matt Peckham: And it looks like another Assassin’s Creed game. Love ’em, but nothing special to say about the demo in terms of special abilities, locales, or story content.
1:33 Comment From Matthew @Chris Holt: Okay, bummer it’s only online, but cheer up, it can’t be worse than FFXI
1:33 Comment From Spencer If if EA is done does that mean no news on Crysis 2?
1:33 Matt Peckham: That’s right Spencer. They name-checked Crysis 2, but that was all we saw or heard of it. (Alas.)
1:34 Matt Peckham: And over to another montage. Man, the montages in Sony’s show are endless. I can’t keep track of all the stuff we’re looking at.
1:35 Chris Holt: How does AC Brotherhood’s multiplayer work? Do you tackle NPCs or sneak up on each other?
1:38 Matt Peckham: Uh-oh, I just dropped my 3D glasses, and I’m in no position to pick the up. Gran Turismo 5 in 3D…
1:38 Matt Peckham: Gran Turismo 5, the game in the running to beat Duke Nukem Forever for vaporware. Okay, that’s overly cruel, but come on Sony. We want this BEFORE the PS4.
1:39 Matt Peckham: That said, it looks magnificent in the video they’re showing. Assuming this is all in-game, move over Forza.
1:39 Matt Peckham: Well hello release date! November 2, 2010!
1:40 Matt Peckham: It’ll be fully playable in 3D as well as non-3D, with both versions mastered to the same Blu-ray disc. Impressive.
1:40 Matt Peckham: And from GT5 over to InFAMOUS 2. I’ve got the case-sensivity in the title right, right?
1:40 Comment From Matthew Crowd response to GT5 release?
1:41 Matt Peckham: Crowd response = howls of enthusiasm. Some on their feet.
1:42 Matt Peckham: The crowd’s pretty excited about InFAMOUS 2. Middling to strong applause for that one.
1:42 Matt Peckham: “We have ONE LAST SURPRISE FOR YOU.”
1:42 Matt Peckham: Roll the surprise video…
1:42 Matt Peckham: What could it be…
1:43 Comment From Matthew By the way: have inFAMOUS sitting next to me….you were close 🙂
1:44 Matt Peckham: A bunch of clowns with flaming heads…. And Sony’s driving a car out on stage…
1:44 Matt Peckham: Twisted Metal, coming exclusively to PS3, 2011.
1:46 Matt Peckham: And now we’re seeing gameplay… A helicopter, a guy on a bike, someone with a mounted gun (chopper?), vans, more helicopters, each vehicle with two special attacks, team-based gameplay, ability to carry teammates into or out of battle zone.
1:46 Chris Holt: Twisted Metal is that series of games that was always popular and I never understood why.
1:47 Chris Holt: Races and deathmatches never really worked for me.
1:47 Comment From Dominic So…no mention of price break on the PS3 huh?
1:47 Matt Peckham: No mention of a price break on the PS3 or a new budget model.
1:47 Chris Holt: The graphics really aren’t impressing here.
1:48 Matt Peckham: Then again, Twisted Metal was never about looking outrageously beautiful, it was always about the competitive modes and (darkly) humorous attack types.
1:49 Matt Peckham: We’re getting a blow-by-blow of the multiplayer modes. One involves grabbing hostages and dragging them around behind your car. Yep, that’s twisted.
1:49 Matt Peckham: By “them,” I’m talking live bodies!
1:50 Matt Peckham: You can sacrifice leaders to missile launchers? This is getting weird. And strangely spiritual.
1:50 Matt Peckham: Middling audience response to Twisted Metal for PS3.
1:51 Matt Peckham: Jack Tretton’s back on stage. So that’s it? Anything more for us Jack?
1:51 Matt Peckham: Yep, it sounds like that’s it. Jack just signed off.
1:52 Matt Peckham: That’s it folks. We’re out of here! Watch for our slideshow and news updates to follow shortly.