We’re all used to Sony falling on their face at E3 in the last few years, but, this year, things were different. They’re information was delivered well, they had a great presentation medium using Little Big Planet‘s game engine as a presentation platform over the standard PowerPoint slides and everything went smoothly.
The format for displaying their facts, figures and sales numbers was well played. Nobody wants to sit in front of a chart and listen to an executive blab on about what they did and where they’re going. But, when you add some Little Big Planet flair, such as having the graphs built within their game engine and Sack Boy hopping around on the statistics things smooth over well.
I was confused on why they chose to display the Little Big Planet graphic engine followed by Resistance 2 and then taper into talk about the PlayStation 2 with game previews. It seems more appropriate to bring in the PlayStation 2 product line first, then blow the crowd away with the current generation graphics. Instead, we were awed by the epic Resistance 2 graphics and then presented with old generation stale game engines… silly.
They went on to show off the wide array of PSP games arriving and a little trailer for Resistance Retribution for the PSP. The game system is definitely more mature than their DS competitor but seems to have a bit less sales momentum.
Overall, Sony did one right by talking about their three tiered solution to gaming instead of focusing too much on a single system. PlayStation 3 numbers are good but not mind boggling (like Wii) and their PSP product is doing much better than it used to and the PlayStation 2 numbers are high but falling compared to last year (as would be expected).
By focusing on the full suite of products they’ve put their eggs into many baskets rather than rely on their bleeding edge flagship product which still needs time to grow.
Well done Sony.
@Exbox One and Paystation 4
The Chinese have a very different understanding of what copyright infringement is. At university I was genuinely laughed at for having physical UMD disk games for the PSP by my Chinese course mates. Apparently in Hong Kong you can purchase an already cracked system and download the games online. As lucrative as the Chinese industry is, I don’t think Sony and Microsoft can ever crack it, regardless of the legal status of gaming in the country. Piracy will kill any profits they hope to make. The only games that can survive in China are Freemium games, which offer online transactions for additional content.
@Street Fighter 5 BETA be worth it (sorry my pun game is so weak)
I was never really a fan of the Street Fighter series. Like Jonah, I found it too technical. My biggest problem with the series was its poor storytelling. That’s why I grew up playing Mortal Kombat, with its accessible lore and buckets of ketchup. I was surprised to hear that SFV will be exclusive to PS4. Sony must be paying Capcom a lot of money to keep it that way. Ironically, while skipping Microsoft Xbox One, Capcom is bringing SFV to Microsoft PC,meaning that I can still enjoy the series as long as I overclock my system and get a diamond fiber connection.
@Pee-sports
I still can’t believe that e-sports actually exists. At least don’t call it sport. Comparing Usain Bolt to some spotty snotty teen who calls himself DeathLordOverkill745 is just laughable. Nonetheless, e-sports is difficult to ignore. Its raising the profile of gaming, and often in a negative way. Maybe some proper regulation will do it some good.
@QOTW
I can’t think of an expansion pack that I actually enjoyed. I don’t tend to buy expansion packs on their own. I get them with GOTY edition or in a bundle, so for me they become just a part of the game. The only recent ones I can think of were Dawnguard and Dragonborn for TES5, but all they did was throw extra content at my already overpowered Dark Elf.
I believe that a good expansion pack must provide you with a new gameplay mechanic, that lets you enjoy the game in a new way. Its what distinguishes an expansion pack from DLC. Throwing more of the same at you after you already completed 10 hours of a game is not worth the money. The expansion must also feel like an addition to the game; not something that was supposed to be there in the first place.