Namco

So, what was the secret PS3 title that Namco hinted at? Was it a Tales of … title to complement the 360’s Tales of Vesperia and the Wii’s Tales of Symphonia? No, it’s just the PS3 port of Eternal Sonata. Apparently, this has enhancements and more content beyond last year’s 360 version, but I thought that this port was already official. On the bright side, there’s a good chance that Tales of Vesperia will get released on the PS3 after a 360 exclusivity window.

So far, no word on Tekken 6, which is still supposedly a PS3 exclusive and scheduled to ship after the Cell-powered arcade version.

Nippon Ichi Software

Brighter news from NIS, the developers behind the Disgeaa series (as well as many others). While not at E3, they had this to say:

[NIS America Rep] also mentioned that NIS’ home branch in Japan was interested in using the Wii’s motion capabilities in RPGs in the near future, but mentioned that the Sony family of platforms was still NIS’ main focus.

They also mentioned that they have shifted from PS2 towards PS3 development. They have two titles that they plan to announce in July and October.

Rat Race, the comedy adventure title, has been canceled. This sounded like a great concept and a nice diversion from all the other action shooter-centric games on the market today. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios said:

We really liked the concept; it’s like The Office TV series. It was kind of funny but we were not quite happy with how the game was turning out and there was some difficulty in development.”

Killzone 2 is going to have several classes. Each class has a primary badge and a secondary badge. Don’t like the way those badges are mixed in the predefined classes below? You can create your own class and specify your own primary and secondary badges. Pretty cool. Here are the classes.

Rifleman:

The default multiplayer character is assigned when no primary badge is selected. A secondary badge may still be added. Riflemen can start with most weapons, except for the specialized ones.

Engineer:

Primary badge ability: Sets up an automated turret which targets the enemy.

Secondary badge ability: Repairs ammunition dispensers, mounted guns, and automated turrets.

Medic:

Primary badge ability: Revives downed team mates.

Secondary badge ability: Throws a health pack, which can be picked up by other players

Scout:

Primary badge ability: Uses a cloaking suit to become near-invisible.

Secondary badge ability: Tags all on-screen enemy players with a hidden marker, which broadcasts their coordinates to team mates.

Assault:

Primary badge ability: Dons heavy armour twice as strong as normal.

Secondary badge ability: Temporarily boosts running speed.

Tactician:

Primary badge ability: Throws a coloured smoke grenade, which serves as a spawn point.

Secondary badge ability: Requests air support from a sentry bot which targets the enemy

Saboteur:

Primary badge ability: Assumes the disguise of a randomly selected enemy player.

Secondary badge ability: Throws a sticky, proximity-activated C-4 charge.

Pretty neat, huh? Personally, I like the scout’s ability to tag enemy players for others to see. The first class I’ll create will probably have that as a secondary ability, along with the Saboteur’s ability to disguise oneself as the primary ability.

Disclaimer: I found this info all over the place on the ‘net. But I didn’t find the official source for it yet. If anyone has the link, I’d appreciate it.

PS3 Fanboy gave their impressions of the video download service. IGN PS3 gave their impressions of the video download service. Where’s PS3Blog.net’s impressions? I was hoping to rent an HD movie last night and talk about it here, but it was not meant to be.

Why?

I’m Canadian.

That’s right. I’m Canadian. I guess Canadians don’t get access to the video download service from Sony. I assume it’s coming eventually, but I know that it’s not here now. First I accessed the store remotely through Remote Play on my PSP. No luck. I thought that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t work through the PSP. So I turned on my home theater and went to the store directly without Remote Play. But I got no video content that way either.

So I tried creating an American account. But the problem is that my VISA is tied to a Canadian billing address, so even if I got into the store, I wouldn’t be able to pay for anything.

* SIGH *

So I have two questions:

1) Anybody in America wish to give their impressions of the video download service?

2) Anybody outside of America also have my problem? I’m wondering if the service is available to any non-Americans.

Well, the Sony E3 2008 press conference is over. As I predicted, Sony was relatively quiet and didn’t announce much that was new. In case you didn’t see the conference or read the news, here’s a quick recap:

• Video Download Service
  The new video download service goes live tonight! It looks like Sony got all the major players aboard, if memory serves. That’s cool. As well, you’ll be able to download your content to your PSP, which is also cool. To me, prices seemed inline with what you have to pay at iTunes or elsewhere. In other words, slightly too much.
• Resistance for PSP
  Sony announced a new Resistance title for the PSP, not developed by Insomniac.
• PSN Ratchet & Clank
  There’s a new Ratchet & Clank game coming to the PS3, and it’s a $14.99 PSN title.
• DC Universe Online
  DC Comics MMO by SOE. This is the first time that this title has been shown to the public.
• MAG
  By Zipper Interactive, this is a new shooter with 256 players online at once! They showed a teaser video with example gameplay. Parachuting from the skies!
• New PS3 Hardware
  Sony is upping the storage of the current 40GB PS3 to 80GB PS3. And while they didn’t say it, I assume this means that the current 80GB PS3 will fall by the wayside. In my mind, this is actually bad news. It means that Sony will no longer be selling a PS3 with BC or 4 USB ports or memory card readers. Doh!
• God of War 3
  Sony officially announced God of War 3 for the PS3. They showed a teaser video, but no gameplay.
• Greatest Hits
  Some greatest PS3 hits are getting a $30 pricetag, like the original Resistance, Warhawk, MotorStorm, and Call of Duty 3.

Tosh, Gary, Darrin - feel free to expand the list.

One of the coolest things was the use of a LittleBigPlanet level to help present some of the facts and figures surrounding the PlayStation universe. I want to play that level!

What do you all think? I am unhappy to be proven correct in that nothing really new and significant was shown off. MAG is cool, sure. But it’s not the knock-out punch that Sony really needed to deliver.

Or is it?

Sony Keynote
July 15, 2008 at:
- 11:30 AM PST
- 2:30 PM EST
- 7:30PM UK

E3 2008: The Thread

* IGN LiveWire
* Gamespot Video Feed(Started late yesterday)
* G4(last resort)

*links to several liveblogs*

* StiqOfJoy
* GiantBomb LiveBlog

If you know of any others let me know and I’ll update this post.

Warhawk v1.4 Update “Free Gameplay Modes!!” The 1.4 update is coming out tomorrow and it contains 2 new gameplay modes! And it’s free! (No trophy support yet, but it’s coming. And you won’t have to buy the DLC content packs to get the platinum trophy.)

Resistance 2

Infamous

Bioshock PS3

In general, Microsoft events are best left to other sites (here is a good one), but two of Microsoft’s announcements were quite a surprise and worth discussing here.

Final Finatasy XIII

FFXIII is no longer PS3 exclusive and will be simultaneously released on both PS3 and 360. This title was long rumored as one of the PS3’s last huge third party exclusives along with MGS4 (which so far, has remained exclusive). On the bright side, it still ships for PS3. Also, while discussing Star Ocean and Last Remnant, Microsoft and Square avoided saying that they would be exclusive which is a strong sign that a PS3 version may be a possibility. Also, Level 5’s White Knight Story is being published by Sony so there is little chance of losing that exclusive. Hopefully, there will be more good news tomorrow.

UPDATE: Square Enix says that FFXIII will initially be developed and released for PS3 only in Japan only. Then they will do the westernized version and 360 version. This suggests that the 360 version may be western-only and may not come out in Japan, although that isn’t completely clear from the wording that is used.

Netflix

Netflix has long had a Internet movie streaming service for Windows PCs. Now, you will be able to use a 360 as well, which is nicer since 360s tend to be setup in living rooms where people generally watch movies. Netflix has a formidable movie selection, so this is a useful service. Some sites are reporting the Netflix/360 deal is “exclusive”, which would mean that Netflix would not be coming to the PS3 (of course, this isn’t fully exclusive since the PC already does this and they intend to support Macs as well). Sony is launching their movie service soon as well. We shall see how these different services compare.

First, a Look Back at Sony’s Surprises from E3, 2007

• Redesigned PSP hardware
• Surprise price drop on North America PS3 hardware
• New Game Unveilings: Echochrome, Infamous
• First Looks at WipeoutHD and Socom and Killzone 2
• Exclusivity Announcements for Metal Gear Solid 4, Haze, and UT3
• ncSoft partnership and future PS3 exclusive MMOs
• More footage and more details about all other upcoming titles.

In hindsight, it was a fairly surprise packed show. MGS4 was a huge hit, but other titles were disappointing (Haze), and several still haven’t been released. The delays of the MMO type titles, such as Home and the ncSoft titles, are somewhat understandable since longer than usual delays and dev cycles are the norm for that type of game.

What to Expect from Sony at E3, 2008

New Games

Judging by past events, most new games that will be announced will likely still be in early development and won’t be ready to ship until late 2009 or so. However, I would expect a few 2008 surprises similar to how Sony revealed Folklore only a five months before it hit shelves in May 2007. Prime Sony Studio candidates for new game unveilings are: Team ICO, Naughty Dog, SCEA Santa Monica, Zipper, SCEE London. More games for the PlayStation Eye? More PSN titles? First look at flOwer?

Third Party Deals

Last year, they announced several surprising third party deals. Since we haven’t heard much since then, hopefully that means that there are some new developments that will be made public at the show. Namco has hinted at one PS3 exclusive that we will hear about (probably a Tales title that parallels the 360/Wii Tales titles). Will there be anything new with Square? Maybe we will hear more about that Rockstar PS3 exclusive that Sony execs hinted at?

Services

We are sure to hear about their movie-on-demand service. Will we hear about their planned music-on-demand service as well?

Hardware

Sony has been very tight-lipped about hardware in the past. Almost no one saw the price and hardware changes that were announced at least year’s E3 (although the redesigned PSP was widely rumored before hand). I’m not expecting anything, but I’m hoping to be surprised. Specifically, I’m hoping for lighter, slimmer PS3 hardware. They’ve already shrunk the CPU technology to smaller, cooler 65nm technology and they plan to make the same change to GPU hardware as well. Additionally, manufacturers are making blu-ray drives that are much slimmer than what current PS3’s use. Routine logic board optimizations and simplifications are also expected. A slimmer PS3 is inevitable, it’s just a question of when.

Surprises

It wouldn’t be a big show, without the surprises.

Anyone have any other E3 predictions or wish lists?

I’ve been thinking about it, and you know what? I don’t think there will be any major revelations for the Sony camp at E3 this year. They’ll talk about Resistance 2, LittleBigPlanet, and other sundry games that have already been announced.

They’ll probably talk about their new video download service. Tosh reminded me about that one. But that’s not new, it just hasn’t been officially unveiled yet. Sony has already said that something would happen this summer.

Home? It’s been talked about so much, that I don’t think there’s really much to reveal. Unless they’ve added something new to the service that makes it more compelling for gamers. (Which I think it needs.)

So nope, I don’t think we have much to get excited about at this year’s E3. But that’s just me. I may be way off base here. Have you guys heard anything I haven’t?

Thanks Gary for the link! You can now link your PSN id to your PlayStation Underground account. This is what you end up with:

I guess I should add a comment about myself so that the bottom portion isn’t empty…

Link