Famous game journalist and Wired writer, Chris Kohler made the following statement right before E3 on 7/2/2007:

Also, Konami probably prefers making money to losing truckloads of it. All things considered, I’m pretty sure it’s already a done deal, given the fact that we hear very credible rumors about it once a week or so.

Rumors every week? Yes. Credible rumors? For all those credible rumors he’s been hearing, he sure didn’t post a single link or reference.

Also, multi-platform games don’t necessarily earn more money. Sure, they reach a large user base which has obvious revenue advantages, however there are huge buzz and marketing advantages to being platform exclusive and a substantial audience is much more receptive to buying a platform exclusive title than a similar multi-platform one.

A highly circulated anonymous insider tip surfaced at Nooz:

Earlier this week, the information of Metal gear’s non platform exclusivity was imparted to me by way of a dev source close to the team who cannot be named by pain of death. It’s coming a few months later than the PS3 game, but it’s happening folks.

This is said to be because publishers - including Konami - don’t believe there’ll be enough PS3s out there by the time the game hits because of the blu ray diode failure issues.

We honestly can’t rule out the possibility of a timed exclusive yet. However, I’ll bet that this “anonymous insider tip” was really just nonsense to begin with.

Other notable journalists and bloggers who called this one wrong:

• Our own Henning predicted a 5% chance of MGS4 remaining PS3 exclusive at E3. (Sorry Henning)
• 1UP Yours Podcasters were pretty sure that MGS4 was a sure thing on the 360. Shane was the only one to disagree (however, he felt the exact same way about DMC4)
• Arstechnica’s Ben Kuchera predicted MGS4 would be announced for 360 at E3 (Frank disagreed)

Conclusion

As a PS3 fan, it really feels wonderful to see the nearly unanimous doom-sayers call this one so far off.

Wired’s Chris Kohler is sure of a 360 MGS4 before E3 2007

Nooz anonymous insider
Joystiq links to the Nooz insider: heightened rumor
Another site is completely convinced that the Nooz insider confirms it.

• Eye Of Judgment
• Haze (Timed Exclusive through Q4 2007 and Q1 2008)
• Heavenly Sword
• NBA ‘08
• Lair
• LittleBigPlanet Beta. Final release in Summer 2008.
• Folklore
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
• SingStar
• SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation
• Time Crisis 4
• Uncharted: Drakes Fortune
• Unreal Tournament III (PC/PS3 Timed Exclusive)
• Warhawk
• Wipeout HD (PSN)

And of course, there will also be PlayStation Home and GT5 Prologue and the swarms of amazing cross platform titles.

As much as I love my PS3, I’ve only bought one PS3 game since I bought the system in January. There are some great titles like Motorstorm and Ninja Gaiden and Rainbow Six but I’m pretty picky about what I buy when I get enjoy most games for a cheap rental. However, during the rest of this year, I honestly expect to buy roughly 10 titles. The games are just too good.

MINOR UPDATE: Added Wipeout HD. LBP only has beta in 2007 with final release in ‘08.

The PS3 launched at $499/$599 with 20GB/60GB models and now PS3 is again selling at $499/$599 with 60GB/80GB models. Both Sony executive Jack Tretton and Microsoft executive Peter Moore have suggested that there was not a PS3 price cut for this reason.

From a more practical perspective, the most popular PS3 purchase price (in the US) clearly dropped from $599 to $499. Why didn’t Sony just announce a price cut and leave it at that? Why introduce the 80GB model? Consumers can easily ignore the 80GB model and buy 60GB models if they prefer, but it still seems like an odd strategy.

Any theories on why Sony chose the route that they did?

At E3 this year Sony also showed off some new PlayStation Home features. Check out the video to see!

Home (PSN)

E3 isn’t even over yet, but I feel compelled to mention a few things that have struck me so far, especially in light of my last soapbox and my predictions therein. If you have the G4TV cable channel, now is actually a good time to put it to use. I caught all the press conferences I wanted, plus they have a 3 hour show every evening covering E3. If you don’t have G4TV, or even if you do, don’t forget to check out the PSN Store. They’ve got a ton of trailers there, even some hidden videos, and they’re not even downloading too slow.

One thing that really struck me is that PS3 fans have little to worry about. We’ve been hearing a lot of bad news in the PS3 world with bad ports, lost exclusives, delayed ports, cancelled games, etc. It was hard to keep up the faith. But E3 showed us that Sony still has life in it, and it’s more than just a little. The general consensus is that Sony’s was the most impressive press conference. The PS3 has a spectacular lineup of games coming out, and we know that this fall will bring a virtual cornucopia of choices.

The Killzone 2 demo was quite impressive. I had predicted that it would look good, but not quite up to par with the target render. This is one of my few predictions that came true, though I have to admit that it was a safe one. The demo looks fantastic. Don’t forget to download the video showing the demo from the PSN Store.

I am disappointed that the beta for Call of Duty 4 is going to be Xbox 360 exclusive. But not that disappointed, because the game itself is still being releasead for the PS3, and I’m really looking forward to it. Hopefully us PS3 gamers won’t get shafted like we did with CoD3, especially with regard to online support and map packs. But I have high hopes - it’s a different developer this time. Don’t forget to check out the PSN Store for the trailer.

LittleBigPlanet did make an appearance, unlike my prediction. Unfortunately, G4TV was in a commercial break for much of it. Doh! But luckily there’s a trailer on PSN Store, and I watched it yesterday. Yay! I was impressed. Very impressed. Every kid in the world (and every kid-at-heart) who wants to make video games for a living will buy this game. And create levels. And show them to the world. It’s that simple. I saw some of the stuff in there and was amazed. The game actually let’s you build things with CSG (constructive solid geometry)!!! Man that’s cool. I just know that someone’s going to recreate all of Star Wars in LittleBigPlanet, and believe me, I’ll be in line to download those levels. LittleBigPlanet will be huge.

How did my other soapbox predictions fair? Well, there was a price cut, obviously. But that was easy to predict. Sales have gone up and stayed up for a couple days. Let’s hope it stays that way. As well, we haven’t lost MGS4 exclusivity (yet), and I’m glad I was wrong about that one. I hope I continue to be wrong. But we haven’t heard anything about a rumble SIXAXIS, at least not from Sony. Quite disappointing. The only thing we heard is that Immersion has licensed its technology to some third parties for the purpose of rumble controller creation. Ah well. Sony must be announcing something soon, right? Maybe next week in Japan, when MGS4 will be shown off properly. (What event is that, anyway?)

Other Soapbox Rants

Wow! Sony really hit that one out of the park! I was expecting good things, but wow. Here’s a quick summary:

• PSP Redesign: 33% lighter and 19% slimmer. Bundles for $199 including Daxter, Family Guy UMD, 1GB memory stick, new Silver color. Separate Star Wars Battlefield bundle.
• echochrome: New original game. Minimalist graphics. Original gameplay
• PSN Games: Wipeout HD. More on Pain, SOCOM, Warhawk
• Way more Home features: Interactivity from regular mobile phones. Launch directly into multiplayer games.
• NCSoft making PS3 exclusive MMO titles
• Haze is a PS3 exclusive through Q4 2007 and at least Q1 2008.
• Unreal Tournament 3 will be a PS3 timed exclusive this holiday.
• MGS4 will remain PS3 exclusive!!! Counter to almost everyone’s predictions.
• Infamous announced. This is the new title from Sucker Punch Studios, who are famous for the excellent Sly Cooper series.
• GT5 Prologue demo this year. Includes full online multiplayer. Full GT5 in 2008.
• Killzone 2 trailer. Game looks awesome. Scheduled for 2008.
• More on all the other big 2007 PS3 titles.

Wow, I’m very impressed. Sony nailed it. Great price cut, and lots of high quality new announcements and surprises.

CORRECTION: Fixed “PSP2″ -> “PSP”.