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Tuesday was a big day for Sony, being the last of the big three to give their conference.  Overall, the conference was well done, with Sony revealing a few well known secrets, but also a few that were quite a surprise.  Missed the show?  Couldn't catch the live stream?  Don't want to sit through two hours of demos and awkward hosts on stage?  No worries, TWG has you covered with the Wrap Up of the Sony E3 '09 Conference.

The show opened with a sleek intro showing the three current Sony systems, the PSP, PS2 and PS3, showcasing video from each of the different platforms.  The conference kicked off with market details about the PS2 and the price drop to $99.00 and how big of a success it's been for Sony.  They said that they will continue to support the PS2, which is now in its ninth year, because they fully support their claims to a ten year life span for all systems.

But you're not reading this to hear about the PS2, so let's move on to the good stuff.

The conference then went into a few details about the PS3, with demos of a few games that have already come to the public light.  According to those at the conference, there will be a total of 35 exclusive titles coming to the PS3 this year, so it will be interesting to see how those play out.  Now onto the game demos.

Some members from Naughty Dog came out to showcase a bit of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which is shaping up to be quite an impressive game.  The demo started off with Nathan climbing to the top of a large building with a woman to reveal a breathtaking view of a vibrant city below.  The two quickly take a trip down a zipline, landing on a rooftop that's scattered with debris.  As Nathan starts to make is way across a beam to get to the other side of the building, a Hind D helicopter rises up just a few hundred feet away and opens fire.  The rest of the demo is a chaotic run from the Hind, with Nathan fighting off armed goons inside a crumbling building, with great quips of dialogue to go along with it.

 

After that, developers from Zipper Interactive came out to give everyone a taste of a live, 256 player battle from MAG, the massive online shooter that's coming to the PS3 later this year.  The demo showed some of the squad leader controls, and the overall tactical map that they can bring up to assess situations on the field before giving their orders.  In the small bit of gameplay that was shown, the developers were pushing towards an enemy held bunker which, once taken by them, would become a forward spawn point for their team.  There were a few interesting bits of information that were presented, like the fact that all the ambient and distant gunfire you hear while playing a match is all real players firing their weapons somewhere off in the distance.  Also, once the bunker was secured, helicopters flew in with support troops, and these were controlled by real, live players as well.  The demo showcased the fact that MAG really can pull off battles of a massive scale, and we'll have to see how it all shakes out this fall when the game is released.

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With the first of the game demos out of the way, Sony moved on to the PSP portion of the conference, beginning with the "official" announcement of the PSP Go, which they also jokingly referred to as "The Worst Kept Secret of E3", drawing many laughs from the crowd.  For anyone who missed the news late last week, the new PSP Go is 50% smaller than the current PSP 3000, and 40% lighter.  It features a 3.8 inch screen, 16 GB of internal flash memory, and a memory expansion slot if that isn't enough storage space for you.  The unit also supports Bluetooth, which can be hooked up to a headset or through your phone.  But the coolest thing about the PSP Go is the new design, which acts like many popular cell phones on the market today that utilize sliding screens.  The screen of the PSP slides up to reveal the D-Pad, joystick, start and select buttons as well as the face buttons beneath.  The unit no longer has a UMD slot, because Sony designed the PSP Go to cater more to the digital crowd, those who prefer to download all their games with no physical media.  To accomplish that, the unit has free WiFi which you will be able to use to access the PSN to download games amongst other things.  They also stressed the fact that the PSP Go is not a replacement for the PSP 3000, and that the two will co-exist on retail shelves when the PSP Go hits stores this fall.

Along with the PSP Go announcement, Sony showcased details of the new Gran Turismo game that will be coming out for the PSP this fall.  The game runs at a smooth 60 FPS, and will feature 800 cars, as well as 35 tracks with 60 different variations.  They stressed that this isn't a "pocket size" GT game, and that it does in fact have the same amount of content they would put in a console release, just on a smaller scale.  Since there are so many cars in the game, there is a feature that allows you to connect with your friends via WiFi to trade and add cars to your garage, so you don't have the burden of getting them all yourself.  It's a cool feature, and the game will be a must have for a lot of PSP owners out there.  GT for the PSP has a tentative release date of October 1st, 2009.

 

 

For the next announcement, Hideo Kojima came out on stage and shared the word about Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which is a full on sequel in the metal gear saga for the PSP.  Taking place in the mid 1970's, ten years after MGS 3, the game follows Big Boss on a mission in Costa Rica.  A full trailer was shown, which showcased different cinematic aspects of the game as well as some of the gameplay features that we've all come to expect from a MGS game.  Hideo Kojima is writing the script for the game, while members of the MGS 4 team are working on the game, and it is meant to be a true sequel to MGS 3, filling in some of the gap between MGS 3 and MGS1 (that's a fun timeline to think about, isn't it?).  There wasn't a definite release date for it yet, but the trailer is online, so go take a look!

They did a general PSP wrap up after that, with mentions of Resident Evil portable and LittleBigPlanet portable, and ended with a showcase video of many of the different games that will be coming out for the PSP in the future.

Then came the short segment on the PSN, detailing the fact that there are over 24 million users now in over 55 countries.  There was a montage of footage shown on the different aspects of Home, the PSN virtual networking world.  One of the coolest announcements was that there will be a number of classic PS One titles making their way to the PSN, one of which is Final Fantasy VII, now available on the US PSN for $9.99.  It's not a remake, but it's a start I suppose.