PS3 E3 Conference Round Up

PS3 E3 Conference Round Up July 18, 2008

Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : E3, Video Games , trackback

Ok, this is not as interesting or feature filled as Microsoft and Nintendo‘s conferences, but Sony did come out with some interesting things like a higher capacity PS3, new PS2 bundle (not everyone made the jump to the “next-gen” consoles), a new video download store and more. For all the info, just hit the “More” link.

Like the 360 post, we’ll break this down into 3 categories: PS3, PS2, and PSP. Now let’s get to the info.

PS3:

New Higher 80 GB PS3- One of the biggest noise makers at the conference. This upgraded PS3 will slot in for $399, but this “new” PS3 doesn’t add much more, as it is not “backward compatible” with your old PS1 and PS2 games, and nothing else seems to be bundled in as well. Though for those of you interested, it should come to the US in September, with Europe, Australia, Middle East, Africa all receiving it a few days earlier on August 27.
Updates to PlayStation Home- For those of you who don’t know, PlayStation Home is basically a virtual world right inside your PlayStation 3. It uses avatars (those virtual you’s) and let’s you interact with other people’s avatars’ to do things like play games, chat, anything you’d do in this world really. It is free and currently in a test form (beta) that is open to the public now. Check it out from your PS3 and let us know how it goes.
New PlayStation Video/TV Download Store- Hmm, this sounds familiar. Whatever, Sony made it official here at E3, and they also announced a whole lot of movie studio partnerships- Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Turner, Funimation, and of course Sony’s own movie studio- Sony Pictures. The movies and TV shows will be available in both High Def, and regular Def (also know as Standard Def, or SD), for $1.99 for TV shows, and $9.99 to $14.99 for movies. You can also rent videos in this new store for $2.99-$3.99. This is all nice and good, but what is great about this, is the ability to then sync your downloaded videos to your PSP from your PS3 to take with you on the go. Very nice touch.

PS3′s new video store from Sony’s PS3 E3 Conference (Pic from Engadget.com)

PS3 “Hits” to sell for $29.99- Those of you with a PS2 or PSP may have heard this before with your respective console, but now it’s coming to the PS3. The top games for PS3 will be thrown onto this list and receive a lower, and very awesome price (just to note, this doesn’t happen right away, and usually takes a long time till it reaches this status- usually when, or right before the next version comes). Some of the initial titles in this category include MotorStorm, Warhawk, Call of Duty 3, Fight Night, Need For Speed: Carbon, Assassin’s Creed, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and a few other games as well.

Example of PS3 “Hits” from Sony’s E3 Conference (Pic from Engadget.com)

For the last two bullets we do not yet know of a certain release date, but we could safely assume that it will come soon.

PS2

130 Titles coming to PS2 in 2008- This has got to be great news for all the PS2 owners out there- Sony has not abandoned you in favor of the PS3! Some of these upcoming new games include NCAA Football 09, the latest Tiger Woods game, Warriors Orochi 2, Singstar Pop vol. 2- Sony’s karaoke game, Madden 09, and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
New PS2 Bundle- For $149.99, you can get yourself a new PS2, Lego Batman, and Justice League Movie! Not much, but again, shows Sony is still very committed to the PS2.

New PS2 Bundle (Pic from Engadget.com)

PSP:

New Ratchet and Clank Bundle for $199- This bundle comes with a silver PSP Slim, 1 GB memory card, National Treasure 2 on UMD (PSP’s disc format for playing games and watching movies- similar to DVD’s, but doesn’t work with anything other than the PSP), Ratchet and Clank Size Matters game, and a voucher for Echocrome (a puzzle game from Sony). This new bundle should come out in October.
New Games for PSP-These games include: new Star Wars, Madden 09, a new LocoRoco game, NBA 09 (Sony’s version, though we think NBA Live 09 will also come out for PSP), a new Lego franchise, Patapon 2, and a Buzz quiz game with multiplayer play without going on the internet (called Ad-Hoc).

We told you it wasn’t the most fascinating conference ever (sadly no new PSP 2, something that was rumored to perhaps make an appearance), but Sony did have some decent stuff which you can look forward to seeing pretty soon.

Keep checking back, because we do still have some more real interesting info from E3 (Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero 4 info as a start) which we hope to have out soon.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)