Steve Boxer reports direct from Leipzig for Three Speech.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President David Reeves took the helm for a meaty, barnstorming press conference at the Games Convention in Leipzig which, among the traditional sales analysis of Sony’s PlayStation family in Europe (and an impressive, if mercifully brief, excursion into the German language), yielded some interesting information about precisely which first-party PlayStation 3 games will hit the shops in time for this Christmas.
After discussing general console market growth (impressive since 1997), and reiterating that the PS3 actually sold faster than the PS2 over the first three months of its availability, and is now more or less tracking the PS2 in sales terms, Reeves provided a detailed snapshot of which PS3 games will be released when.
First up was a release date for Heavenly Sword: September 14. We reckon the utterly wonderful Heavenly Sword (a much more complete game than past demos suggested) will be Sony’s biggest in-house gun this Christmas, and the amount of prominence granted to it in Reeves’ speech appeared to confirm that. Reeves didn’t give precise release dates for either Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction or Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, but did confirm that they too, will arrive in time for Christmas. As will the RPG Folklore (likely to come out October 12), dragon-flying extravaganza Lair (likely to come out October 26), SingStar and Eye of Judgment. Backed up on the PlayStation Network by some juicy titles, including WarHawk, WipEout HD and – cue much rejoicing – Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.
Polyphony Digital main man Kazunori Yamauchi was in the audience, and Reeves went into a bit of detail regarding GT 5 Prologue: it will run in 1080p, supporting up to 16 players competing over the PlayStation Network, and will come with 50 cars and five tracks. One of which is Suzuka. Reeves did a small amount of looking ahead to games due out next year, unveiling Buzz! Quiz TV, the first PS3-specific version of Buzz! Which, unsurprisingly, makes good use of the PS3’s online abilities: as well as “sofa versus sofa” play between families in different locations, it will let you choose your topic – the disk will contain vast amounts of questions on music, TV, sports and movies, and you will be able to download extra quiz-packs. As well as compile and upload your own questions. Buzz! Quiz TV won’t appear until next year, but it does sound enticing. Reeves also confirmed that Konami’s Metal Gear Solid IV will be a PS3 exclusive, and will appear at the end of next year.
It wasn’t all about the software: Reeves unveiled a new, functional-looking but distinctly exciting piece of new hardware which will plug into the PS3 called Play TV. Which basically turns the PS3 into a Freeview personal video recorder, letting you watch one programme while recording another. Such Freeview PVRs are commonplace these days, but PlayTV’s interface, taking advantage of the PS3’s TV-streaming capabilities, looked particularly impressive. Play TV will arrive “early next year”.
Reeves also highlighted what Sony clearly views as something of a coup: this year, the FIFA Interactive World Cup – the global gaming event which aims to find the world’s best FIFA 08 player – will be enacted on PlayStation 3s, rather than Xbox 360s.
There was plenty of PSP news, too: Reeves waved around a selection of Slim & Lite PSPs, including two limited editions which will come bundled with games: a yellow Simpsons one and a red and black Spider-man 3 one. And he announced two new services for the PSP: Go Messenger which brings instant messaging and video-chat to the PSP via Wi-Fi, and Go Explore, which turns the PSP into a sat-nav. The latter will go on sale next February, and the former next January.
Amendment to the above: As far as we’re aware, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid IV is due for the start, rather than the end of next year.
A good soild conference in my book, depends on how you look at the news to see if any ‘fireworks’ went off.
Personally knowing that we have 4+ AAA titles coming this year is great news and the TvPLAY looks very interesting, i was thinking of getting Freeview but i will wait for this to take advantage of the PS3 HDD space i have left over……
Best getting saving them £ for all the great game coming over the next 4 months.
Comment by Nathaniel — Aug 23, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
Who cares about these games if I cant access the XMB in them!!!!!
Comment by Chris — Aug 23, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
IN GAME XMB
Comment by Chris — Aug 23, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
I’d agree, very solid. Lots of really great information for us Europeans and it should please every PlayStation owner!
Comment by Arthur The Magnificiant Squirrel — Aug 23, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
MGS4 at the end of next year ?
Shouldn’t that be in the beginning of next year ?
(at least, according to all the trailers and Konami statements)
Comment by Xtc — Aug 23, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
It all sounds good! Any picutes of the two themed PSP’s yet?
Comment by Jeebers — Aug 23, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
While all this looks great, why does the US get shafted on the new tech? Either way, none of this matters until we have new, original software to brag about; otherwise, why would anyone want a PS3 in the first place?
SUMMARY: worry about games 1st, and new tech/extras 2nd-the PS3 costs way too much to have such a void of software
Comment by AwRy108 — Aug 23, 2007 @ 4:13 pm
If you ask me (which I know you didn’t but tough!), Sony’s big mistake has been naming the thing a PS3.
Calling something a Playstation 3 immediately conjures up the word ‘gaming’ above and beyond any other features they bundle it with. So the PS2 could play DVDs - great, but it hardly compares to what they’ve tried to do with the PS3.
If they’re being bold enough to try to push beyond what people traditionally think of when they see that black box under the TV, why haven’t they been bold enough to come up with a new name that better fits with what they’re striving to accomplish?
At least then they wouldn’t have people bitching at them when they announce new stuff that isn’t to do with playing games.
Okay, calling it a Playstation gets a huge number of existing Sony customers foaming at the mouth with anticipation, but delivering something other than what those same customers who bought PS2s are drooling about is likely to piss more than a few of them off, and you end up with defensive comments like, “Oh but we’re trying to do so much more with this console than anyone’s ever done.”
Great, but we were kind of expecting a games console.
On another note, given how hard and expensive it’s been for developers to get to grips with the PS3 processor, it’s hardly surprising things have been quiet on the games front this first year.
There’s a similar reason why Wii games have had mixed receptions - games developers are still getting to grips with how to program for the control system in a way that doesn’t suck.
It also goes some way to explain why the 360 gets a raft of new big name title announcements every quarter - programming for the processor and the control system has been established further in advance and over time cost and complexity has been driven down - which wasn’t as big an issue (for better or worse) compared to Wii and PS3 in the first place anyway.
The best thing to do would be to embrace the new features and wait patiently for new games - when they come you might have too much arthritis to play them, but at least your grandchildren might enjoy them. Purely for nostalgia reasons, of course.
Comment by Gonuts — Aug 23, 2007 @ 4:51 pm
I think playstation is quite apt, the unit Plays music, video and games, soon we’ll be able to do telly too. Yummy.
Comment by Demibeard — Aug 23, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
I can’t understand why people would complain about Sony adding non-game features to the PS3. Sure if you bought it only to be a game box it doesn’t necessarily add any value to you, but its not very likely Sony could have redeployed the PlayTV developers to write games for instance. Very different set of skills needed between those two programming tasks.
And sure the first year game output hasn’t been incredible, but to me it seems things are picking up speed quickly at this point. The list of 1st and 3rd party titles coming out before Christmas is pretty long. Personally I am looking forward to titles such as Eye of Judgement, Haze, Little Big Planet, Folklore and Gran Turismo. Looking at next year I am looking forward to Soul Caliber, Socom and Final Fantasy.
I am sure others have different lists, but there should be more than enough game titles coming out over the next few month to feed most peoples needs.
And personally I think the media center functionality of the PS3 is a killer feature. Already bought myself two blu-ray movies and I am for sure going to get more.
So sure, the list of games so far isn’t that impressive, but the line-up for the next six Months looks solid to me.
Comment by Christian — Aug 23, 2007 @ 6:43 pm
I swear some people act like games is all they do in life.
Do something else and stop whining god dammit.
Comment by Steve — Aug 23, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
#7 The US gets shafted by your tv companies. In EU/AUS, we have digital free tv - it is a common standard, so it is possible to support everyone with the same box. Cable tv is different, here is aus we only have 1 provider and you need their proprietary box to do any dvr stuff too. Even free-tv dvr’s r also expensive here - hopefully this add-on isn’t too much.
Comment by mpz — Aug 24, 2007 @ 2:14 am
@9: Sure, it plays lots of things and its called a playstation, a two year-old could understand that (aka Sonly’s target demographic), but think of the top-selling consoles, ie not the playstation, and compare what their names denote to what they conote.
Why the hell would you call something a Wii? Sure, I’ve read the blurb about why they chose to call it that, but to the world’s English speaking population, it sounds like a synonym for the verb, ‘to piss’.
Xbox 360 - I’m sure a team of top high-flying marketing guys had a whole week at “Why-we-called-it-this-camp” before Microsoft scraped together a worthy enough nutsack to rubber stamp it, but still - what the hell do the words on their own actually mean?
Conversely Sony clubbed itself round the head with a mallet a couple of times and in a moment of ‘inspiration’ called a thing you plug into your TV to play games on - a playstation. Then to avoid subsequent concussion, they went crazy and slapped on a number ‘2′ for the second one. This time round they truly went apeshit, probably setting a world record for least amount of time spent coming up with a name by calling their third model, ‘3′.
Coming up with a different crap name for the playstation would have screamed to the world “We’ve moved on! We’re on the bleeding edge! It’s not just about games anymore! We’re thinking so far outside the box, it’s disappeared! We’re in the future, and it’s this:
The Sony Abstract Concept Name Part X!”
Think, then everyone would be all like, “Holy shit! It’s not even called a Playstation anymore!Not only can I play games on it, but I can watch TV, cure disease, win the war in Iraq…”
But no, they felt nice and cosy in their established brand, and instead they built up the same anticipation as before about something that is in reality, different, and shat themselves when people started to ask when the games were coming out.
Call me pidantic, call me lots of things, but it’s this same lack of imagination that results in crap computer games, crap movies, crap TV and crap all entertainment.
Comment by Gonuts — Aug 24, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
PlayTV sounds alright…. not a big TV watcher. GTHD caught me attention.. Starcraft 2, GT5 those are the games that are leading this gen so far. And good on the GTHD demo for not giving me motion sickness.
Comment by sycodude — Aug 28, 2007 @ 12:38 am
graphx 10/10
gameplay ???
Comment by sycodude — Aug 28, 2007 @ 12:48 am
Meant to post that last comment for Killzone 2 btw ! SOrry everyone!
Comment by sycodude — Aug 28, 2007 @ 7:03 am
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