E307: Looking Over Our SONY Press Conference Predictions…

Following E3, nobody was really all that happy about the outcome — despite it being quite lively considering the downsize of everything, it still didn’t have all the pizazz we expected. And frankly, I was excited to find that my predictions for all of the Big Three turned out to be quite reliable, a few mistakes here and there, but clearly good. More after the jump…

SONY will push exclusive and hawt software titles- Expect Killzone 2 and God of War: Chains of Olympus to get big pushes from SONY. Every single critic of the PS3 and PSP have complained that they’re no “killer apps” that truly show off both of these device’s true capabilities. You can expect not only these two, but a couple more.

Yes! Killzone 2 received a major push from SONY, but rather surprisingly, GoW: Chains of Olympus did not. I was a bit scared to put Metal Gear Solid 4 on the list, because I was unsure of exclusivity with this. Konami was so hush-hush about the game before it, and even though Hideo Kojima’s statement at SONY’s press conference provided limited information, it explained to us that this is possibly the most important MGS title yet, thus making it the biggest PS3 exclusive to come out thus far, and that’s a plus for SONY.

SONY will focus a lot on bringing the “Playstation Network” to everyone- Yes, and that doesn’t only mean the PSP. SONY wants to bring the Playstation Network to everyone like Microsoft has for XBOX Live, and you can expect SONY to do a lot to push the PS Network, and that includes highlighting Home and another MMO.

Boy was Home highlighted! After all, Jack Tretton kicked off the show in the virtual Second Life-like world. The new features, such as Home Square and the integration of the XMB inside Home (allowing for access to Blu-Ray and HDD games straight from the game), are promising. Furthermore, we heard that quite a few killer apps are on the way to PSN–SOCOM: Confrontation and WipEout HD, for starts. Finally, we heard about NCSoft, the developers behind the ambitious City of Heroes and Guild Wars, who announced that they were developing an MMO for PSP. This one was head-on correct.

The unveiling of a new PSP or new peripherals- This one’s a toss-up, but it’s easy to say now that you can expect a new PSP from SONY or at least new peripherals. SONY will announce more support for the PSP with a possible sequel or new peripherals. You can count on it.

This one was a 50/50. I wouldn’t say that I got this one correct, because I said ‘or’, implying that I was very unsure. The new PSP came, 33% lighter, 19% slimmer, and in a nice package too–available in three colors and entertainment packages at mere prices. That’s quite the bonus. I was very surprised to see no flash drive and no camera, but better battery life, more RAM to reduce loading times, and enticing games could truly make this a much-purchase for those non-PSP owners and those in need of replacing their aging one.

Something with LocoRoco is coming…- We are all waiting. And when it does happen, we will all cheer gladly. We are just crossing our fingers Tsutomo Kounu or Gregg Tavares or some of the LocoRoco developers will be at E3 pushing a LocoRoco sequel or PS3 edition.

Of course I’m friggin upset about this one! It seems that despite my efforts to get the word out that we’d be seeing some sort of sequel or adaptation, there’s nada here and there. GDC, Gamers Day, and E3 all went by, traditionally big events for SONY, and we heard nothing about a second LocoRoco. I’m still ambitious though–Tokyo Game Show is on the way and the game was developed out of SONY’s Japanese studios, so there’s still hope on the horizon, at least for now…

SONY will preview and date the Station Launcher digital distribution system- The PSP has lacked a digital distribution system since its launch, so when SONY promised a Station Launcher system which would resemble iTunes in the way it worked, featuring movies, possibly music, and possibly PSOne emulation downloads, we imagined it being displayed at E3. You can surely bet on it!

Yet again, no! We saw nothing of the ‘Station Launcher’ system–we knew that SONY was planning for it in the longterm future, but we at least expected more of another confirmation here at E3. Guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer for the digital distribution service we’ve been waiting over 2 years for…