Sony @ E3 2012 | "Hey Asshole!" *Brick & Shotgun to the FACE!*

[Scar]

So from what I can gather, Sony did their usual stuff.

They showed off games we knew would be there, with very little by the way of surprise (thanks to leaks). However it was overall a solid performance from them. There was boring shit, but there wasn't an overwhelming focus on the Move and the Wonderbook. Each game had a prettt lengthy time to shine in the presentation.

Good stuff.

Now to watch Nintendo promise things that yet do not exist.

[Marcello]

Were any interesting Vita games besides AC announced?

Edited June 5, 2012 by MarcelloF

[Scar]

Were any interesting PSV games besides AC announced?

Not sure. I didn't see it all. Apparently, there weren't many in the conference itself, but there were announcements and trailers put up on Youtube or something.

[Winston]

Were any interesting Vita games besides AC announced?

Only Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. Nothing else was announced, that I remember atleast.

[Marcello]

Only Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. Nothing else was announced, that I remember atleast.

Good, good. Still no reason for me to buy it then.

[Carbo]

Sony's conferences are seriously becoming a massive tedium for me to watch. Massive shortages of actual news, game play demos of EVERYTHING - including things we've already seen before, generic Move demonstrations, nothing new to sell me on Vita and only really one big new reveal - from a company I have a hard time even calling "game developers". Which is a fantastic shame cause I feel Sony are really the only company this generation that have the best game output and the best console.

Honestly at times I wonder why I even hype myself for E3 anymore when it seems most companies can't stop singing the same worn out tune over the years, especially Sony, who haven't really had a change of pace since 2008. It's almost always the same to expect from them. Very few actual "big reveals" (only ones I can recall are Sly 4 and Twisted Metal throughout the years) and five or so 15 minute game play demos I'd expect Gamespot to record on the show floor. This was something that may have been needed then but it undermines the show nowadays when we've already seen how most of it looks like.

Was it better than EA and Microsoft? Absolutely, but that's seriously not hard to do now is it? It's like an incapacitated fifteen-year old beating up Hello Kitty and a teddy bear, and at least the two latter provide hilarious reactions while the former manages to stir nothing. Their conference may look good in proportion, but compared to Ubisoft, they were nothing short of average at best. It's kind of sad when a community of gamers at a certain site proclaimed Ubisoft's conference the best one so far after spending the last couple of years lambasting them for shitty DRM practices and obfuscations.

Basically what I'm saying is I found the conference average and at worst boring but I shouldn't be surprised because E3.

Pretty much.

[Scar]

They need to have more Shock Announcements and Surprises.

E3, at least to me, has always been about surprises. So far this year, Ubisoft have been the only company who actually surprised me at all. Everybody else was what I expected. Microsoft was terrible - as I expected. EA was terrible - as I expected. Ubisoft though stole the show, absolutely stole the show. Sony was decidedly stable. They didn't really do anything truely terrible but they didn't set our hearts on fire. The only surprise was AC3 Liberations for the Vita.

Sad thing is, I'm even entirely convinced that Nintendo will surprise me this year.

Maybe its because this console generation is winding down and we're on the brink of completely entering Generation VIII. Eh, I don'y know. It certainly feels like Sony and in particular, Microsoft are just padding out their conferences in prepration for their next-gen system.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Scar

[Remy]

If you own a Vita, you have our sympathy. Sony's E3 2012 conference was expected to focus heavily on its ailing handheld; there would be announcement after announcement, surely, in a bid to revive the fortunes of a console which, in its native Japan, is regularly outsold by its predecessor PSP. Instead Sony announced a fighting game we knew about last month, outed a spinoff already revealed by Game Informer, and slapped a subtitle on the Call Of Duty game they announced last year.

To be fair, SCEA president Jack Tretton went a little further than that. Vita will soon play host to the PSone classics that have been available on PSP for years, while a DLC update will let you use its touch controls on PS3's LittleBigPlanet 2. "The Vita portfolio is growing every day," Tretton insisted, "to offer something to every gamer." Okay then.

Speaking of false promises, David Cage was there, announcing Beyond for PS3. "Over the past 15 years Quantic Dream has developed unique games based on interactive storytelling and emotions," he said. "With Heavy Rain and Kara we showed how realtime 3D could be used to create even more emotional experiences." Beyond has some interesting ideas, anyway, with players controlling Jodie Holmes, played by Ellen Page, in a tale which spans 15 years. "We will lead the life of a character," Cage said, "growing with her through happy and difficult times to help her become who she is." He praised her "stunning performance" ahead of a realtime demo in which she sat stock still and said four words. It's a step up from Heavy Rain in visual terms, with full performance capture, but as always with Cage's work we just want to see how interactive it is. Pressing X to Juno won't cut it.

Then came PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale, now confirmed for Vita, with cross-platform play and two new characters: BioShock's Big Daddy, and Uncharted's Nathan Drake. It's easy to scoff at the game, but developer SuperBot Entertainment has packed its staff with competitive fighting game players and clearly knows what it's doing. At this stage, though, it's hard to shake the impression that this is Sony Smash Bros with super combos.

Tretton said Battle Royale's cross-platform play was a unique feature that could only be done on "the industry's best online network," which is apparently now an acceptable way to describe PSN. He hailed the fact that 80 per cent of PS3s and Vitas are connected to PSN, which we were sure was rebranded as SEN a few months back, but it seems Sony has given up on that as well.

One thing Sony hasn't given up on is indie gaming, and the rapturous applause for the merest mention of Journey was more than justified. Dyad, Papa & Yo and The Unfinished Swan are on the way, all on PSN, which Tretton said will host more than 200 downloadable new releases over the coming 12 months. PlayStation Plus is on the up, too: there was no mention of the reported cloud gaming deal which would bring streaming backwards compatibility to PS3 and Vita, but there will be 12 free games for US subscribers on the store today, including LittleBigPlanet 2, Infamous 2, and Saints Row 2. More games will be added all the time, Tretton said, but Europe tends to get short shrift on this stuff, as a thousand angry PlayStation Blog commentors will attest.

Then came the big guns, or at least, what should have been the big guns, starting with Call Of Duty on Vita. "A triple-A, firstperson multiplayer shooter in the palm of your hands, with dual analogue sticks and seamless online connectivity," parped Tretton, revealing a name - Call Of Duty Black Ops: Declassified - and little else. Assassin's Creed Liberation certainly looks the part, and giving the starring role to an Afro-French female assassin is a brave and welcome move from Ubisoft, but both games reinforced the feeling that Vita was headed the same was as PSP, with endless spin-offs from blockbuster franchises farmed out to B-teams. The required avalanche of firstparty software support was simply nowhere to be seen, and it speaks volumes that Liberation will be bundled with the new crystal white Vita. Sony has nothing else.

Attention then turned to PS3, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as we were subjected to extended gameplay demos, starting with Far Cry 3's co-op mode. Four players stood, with heads bowed and feet shoulder-width apart, for ten minutes, looking like an animatronic boy band whose batteries had run out. Assassin's Creed III's nautical battle scene looked great, but like Far Cry 3 it's a multiplatform game, its inclusion here justified by some exclusive DLC and, in Creed's case, another hardware bundle. How unexpected that Ubisoft, following its own event that closed with the intriguing Watch Dogs, would be not only the star of the show so far but also of Sony's conference.

Andrew House seemed to have drawn the short straw backstage when he appeared to talk first about a smartphone deal with HTC - best read as a tacit admission that Sony Ericsson's handsets are terrible - and PlayStation Move. Wonderbook, though, is a decent idea that should do well thanks to a deal with JK Rowling, whose Book Of Spells will be first on shelves. The PlayStation Eye seemed as flakey on stage as it does in the living room, sadly, making for an awkward demo, but we're not the target audience. Is setting fire to a book, putting out the flames with your hands and wiping soot from its pages fun? We're not sure, but the volley of on-screen disclaimers hardly engendered confidence. Hats off to Sony London Studios' Dave Ranyard for dropping the evening's finest truism, expressing his surprise that the increasingly leaky Sony had managed to keep a lid on it all.

Then came God Of War: Ascension, which began in earnest Sony's psychological experiment to see just what a room full of people will rapturously applaud if you keep them sat there for long enough. There was no footage of the series-first multiplayer mode, with game director Todd Pappy instead playing through another ten minutes or so of God Of War's decade-old square-square-triangle combat. The same as ever, then, with the bonus niggling sense that they'd stripped back the HUD for the demo and there'll be many, many more QTEs in the final game. Applause.

Then, at last, came The Last Of Us, which at first glance appears to be as profoundly linear as Naughty Dog's Uncharted games but does things a little differently, with improvised weaponry and genuine tension as the two protagonists inched through a derelict house packed with bandits. Joel slammed an enemy's face into a sideboard, to troublingly rapturous applause. At the demo's end, he took a foe's head clean off with a shotgun, and the crowd went wild. Tretton: "There's another mindblowing example of the incredible talent at Naughty Dog."

And that was your lot. No true surprises, no grand new announcements, no disruptive cloud gaming deal. Just more of the same as Sony, like Microsoft, sought to paper over the cracks as it builds up to next gen. At least the focus was on games. "PlayStation continues to be the epicenter of gaming," Tretton said. "The journey has been fun but I promise: the best is yet to come."

House went even further: "At PlayStation we're always thinking about the future. We understand the way we game is changing: the way we play and interact, the way content is delivered to you. We're going to lead that future. I hope you're as excited as we are about the future."We would be, Andy, but for the moment we're wondering why we spent £220 on a controller for LittleBigPlanet 2.

[Barry the Nomad]

Yeah, pretty disappointing Sony conference. It wasn't bad, but after the MS show I would have thought Sony would try to blow MS away. Instead it played out like MS, only with different games and hardware.

MS had Halo 4 and Gears of War: Judgment

Sony had The Last of Us, Beyond and God of War

Admittedly, PS3's exclusives look like better games to me, but I think they're all strong titles for both consoles. Unless I'm mistaken, Halo 4 is the only title releasing this year of the bunch. Last of Us and Beyond are TBA (better not become the sort of TBA The Last Guardian became) and God of War has an early 2013 release. Gears of War will probably release around this time too.

MS and Sony had strong multi-platform titles, so really, no matter the conference showing these off, we're all winners. Assassin's Creed III, all those FPS and TPS games, Tomb Raider, etc.

MS and Sony both had their share of "omfg these aren't kewl gamezzz! move on!" moments, though while MS's was like quickly removing a couple of band-aids, Sony's felt like one long band-aid being removed. Seriously, that Wonderbook thing went on way too long. It's a novel concept, but it's far from amazing. PS Eye had pet games like it, and iOS and 3DS has done augmented reality already. Nothing really amazing. I'll admit, I like when MS shares new entertainment coming to 360. I like hearing about more shit I can watch since I don't have cable. SmartGlass was pretty quick, and cool for those who have smart phones + a 360. It's not a system seller, but it's a cool perk for those who already have the hardware. Nike was stupid, Usher was a waste of time though the game he was revealing is sure to be good. So really, I'd take sports + nike+ smartglass + usher to a long Wonderbook showing.

I'll give it to MS, they actually revealed some cool exclusive XBLA titles. PSN touted the amount of games available, talked PS+ membership and crossplay.

Vita was given the short end of the stick, I actually like Vita and was pissed off to see Sony announcing just a few games and moving on. Wtf was that all about? 3DS is getting it's own show and Vita gets put in the corner?

I'll give it a B, which is what I gave MS.

[azoo]

I actually kind of liked Sony's conference this year. Seemed a lot more calm and controlled, and they didn't seem like they were trying act all like massive hot-shots over nothing; instead showing games that may possibly pertain to my interests.

Also I didn't mind Wonderbook; although admittedly for the wrong reasons, considering that I'm caring less about it as a game and more as a tool for educational purposes. And I mean on college-course science levels, not just simple storybook games. Still, the Move and Eyetoy together make a better experience than the remote or camera alone, methinks.

Overall I feel like Sony and Ubisoft might've been kind of on the same level, with EA and Microsoft on bottom (of course). Now Nintendo's a-coming..

Edited June 5, 2012 by Azukara

[Remy]

Overall I feel like Sony and Ubisoft might've been kind of on the same level, with EA and Microsoft on bottom (of course). Now Nintendo's a-coming..

Sony aren't within a mile of Ubi, who had Rayman and that scifi game and no boring Books section

[azoo]

Saw a comment like that coming from a mile away. =v

But hey, however you feel, mang. I will admit that a big part of the conferences for me is the presentation, and Sony's way they brought along themselves I could handle a lot more than.. whatever those hosts for Ubi Soft were doing. Still though, I saw good games from both conferences; regardless of whatever other stuff Sony fans are upset with them about as of right now.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Azukara

[Sega DogTagz]

Sony's conference wasn't too shabby. I too think they spent too long with the whole wonderbook idea, but with J.K Rowls behind the concept, I can understand why. Seriously, alot of kids out there will eat that right up.

I think the most important thing to note is that Sony's conference allotted proper time to actually see the games we wanted to see. Even though they seemingly spent a ton of time just talking, three exclusive tittles still got lengthy demo time. Plus the whole thing ended with Kratos liberating some poor Elephant man's brains from its head and a Shotgun blast to the face of another poor chump.

Not spectacular, but I came away satisfied enough.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Sega DogTagz

[Candescence]

Vita was given the short end of the stick, I actually like Vita and was pissed off to see Sony announcing just a few games and moving on. Wtf was that all about? 3DS is getting it's own show and Vita gets put in the corner?

I know. What the hell was Sony thinking? The Vita is not doing well in general (especially not in Japan, where it is bombing hard), to the point where developers and publishers are starting to write it off (Crytek recently said they think it's too late for the Vita now, for example, I don't know any other examples, but still). The Vita NEEDS games to convince people that it's a handheld worth having.

[Scar]

Exactly.

I sincerely hope for their sake they have something planned. There are plenty of games they have that they could have talked about, even if they weren't totally ready. I'm at a loss as to why none of them were brought up. Surely they could have found the time to talk about something.

Now we either have to wait till TGS (which is FAR FAR away) or some other conference they plan to hold to deal with this. I hope somebody mentioned the stark lack of all things Vita in an interveiw.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Scar

[Badnik Mechanic]

Oh my god... They've just announced the EU Playstation Plus deal, I suspect subscriptions are about to go up with this one.

The following games are going to be free for PSN+ users in the EU, they will change every four weeks.

Virtua Fighter 5

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Chime Super Deluxe

Darksiders

Renegade Ops

Ouland

Oddworld Strangers Wrath

Now.... When you join Playstation Plus, at any point within the next 52 weeks. You will be able to download the following titles at any time and keep for as long as your subscription is active.

Infamous 2

Motorstorm Apocaypse

Little Big Planet 2

==============

The next change is as follows.

PlayStation®Plus Presents

In addition to the above, they're going to be looking for best selling or critically aclaimed content which will also be given for free to PSN+ users.

======

The bad/meh changes to PSN+

Free/discounted Minis are to be greatly reduced to the point of being scrapped in PSN+ (although to be honest, good, they're shit).

PSOne & PS2 games are also to be greatly reduced... hmmm.... not sure on this, I did enjoy finding a free PSOne game, and last month I got Max Payne 2... but I've not really played these games.

They do say however that if someonething great comes out they will offer it on the PSN+ system. But I think this will be a once in a blue moon kind of thing.

=====

The main changes.

Content is going to be aimed more at the higher end stuff, so more blu-ray titles will be added (if this includes movies they didn't say) as well as top end PSN titles.

Minis and classic titles will be greatly reduced.

Free avatars/themes/beta signups will not change.

Source: Playstation blog

Fucking hell, I didn't think we'd get anything near as good as that. Thats an amazing deal!

=========

Limited edition Gold controller announced.

Also regarding the lack of Vita announcements, you people are aware that there is actually a ton of new stuff on the show floor that wasn't announced? Just had my weekly email from sony and it's full of Vita stuff thats on the show floor.

[Scar]

They should have made a seperate presentation for all the Vita stuff, so that prospective customers know they exist.

Not to worry though, at least the games actually exist. Now all they need to do is make some noise so that other people are aware of their existance.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Scar

[Stacy]

======

The bad/meh changes to PSN+

PSOne & PS2 games are also to be greatly reduced... hmmm.... not sure on this, I did enjoy finding a free PSOne game, and last month I got Max Payne 2... but I've not really played these games.

Bollocks. Does that mean reduced as in price or quantity? I hope they decide to release more PS1 and PS2 games.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Bollocks. Does that mean reduced as in price or quantity? I hope they decide to release more PS1 and PS2 games.

From the souds of it, quantity. The minis and the classic titles are not going to appear anymore. They say the decision was based on feedback they've taken over the year.

I can sorta see why people decided that, I've been a PSN+ user for over a year, the classic titles have not been so great. The only standouts I can remember was when they put up the Resident Evil games (which I've owned repeatedly), Silent Hill (which I already own) & Crash Bandicott games (which I own... some of).

Everything else has been quite random. So I can see why they've decided to phase those out, although the PS2 titles didn't really get much chance on the PSN+ end of the store.

But, I can see this making PSN+ look more attractive in the future. I don't know about you, but when the store updated and you'd check on PSN+ it did look amazingly shit when it was full of mini's, even if they were free. Most of the time I just didn't even bother to add them to my download list.

[Stacy]

From the souds of it, quantity. The minis and the classic titles are not going to appear anymore. They say the decision was based on feedback they've taken over the year.

I can sorta see why people decided that, I've been a PSN+ user for over a year, the classic titles have not been so great. The only standouts I can remember was when they put up the Resident Evil games (which I've owned repeatedly), Silent Hill (which I already own) & Crash Bandicott games (which I own... some of).

Everything else has been quite random. So I can see why they've decided to phase those out, although the PS2 titles didn't really get much chance on the PSN+ end of the store.

But, I can see this making PSN+ look more attractive in the future. I don't know about you, but when the store updated and you'd check on PSN+ it did look amazingly shit when it was full of mini's, even if they were free. Most of the time I just didn't even bother to add them to my download list.

I really liked being able to purchase old Playstation Games that I no longer have or never had and I am a bit disappointed they are not going to release any PS2 titles because their was fuck all selection as far the UK PSN is concerned.

I am bit disappointed that they are getting rid of them completely!

[Badnik Mechanic]

I really liked being able to purchase old Playstation Games that I no longer have or never had and I am a bit disappointed they are not going to release any PS2 titles because their was fuck all selection as far the UK PSN is concerned.

I am bit disappointed that they are getting rid of them completely!

Erm... this is just for the PSN+ side. They'll still be on the main store.

[Stacy]

Erm... this is just for the PSN+ side. They'll still be on the main store.

Oh okay but they still aren't going to release any more old titles? If thats the case back to emulators I go!

[Badnik Mechanic]

They're still going to release classic titles on the store.

But they won't be offering them for free as much on the PSN+ side.

[Dobkeratops]

Oh okay but they still aren't going to release any more old titles? If thats the case back to emulators I go!

It means they will offer free PS3/PSN titles rather than free PS2/1 games for + subscribers. The volume of classic games to be sold remains unchanged.

[Stacy]

It means they will offer free PS3/PSN titles rather than free PS2/1 games for + subscribers. The volume of classic games to be sold remains unchanged.

Oh right! I am with you guys now! Thanks for replying!