E3 07: Sony Press Conference

Written by Matt Swider  on July 12, 2007

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Sony brought a mix of hardware and software announcements to E3 2007 where it added more weight to its portable market presence by making the PSP lighter and picked up some exclusives for the PS3.

The new PlayStation Portable, still called that for now instead of PSP 2, will be 33% lighter, 19% slimmer and feature remote play for taking control of your PS3 from anywhere with WiFi. In addition to being released in the standard piano black, a second color choice has been added in the way of ice silver. In a bit of relief to hardcore PSP gamers on the go, the enhanced PSP will support video out so that it can be played on any progressive scan television in standard definition format. Although the video output was tested on stage and looked excellent, the jury is still out on how this 480 x 272 resolution will actually perform outside of the press conference. It's also unclear how much the loading time will improve, though, that's another much-requested benefit that was added to the souped-up handheld.

In addition to a УCore Package,Ф Sony is bundling the enhanced PSP in two other SKUs: one with the highly-acclaimed Daxter, a 1GB memory stick and Family Guy: Freakin' Sweet on UMD; the other will come with the new Star Wars Battlefront game (Renegade Squadron) and a limited edition white unit with a black Darth Vadar decal on the back. Both will retail for $199 in September and October, respectively.

Phil Harrison demoed more of the Home УbeetaФ to everyone by creating a portrait in his Home apartment. He took a picture of the crowd with a camera phone (a Sony Ericsson, of course) and through a mysterious xmediabar interface on the phone, he uploaded the image file to PS3. The photo of the gaming journalists appeared in an apartment picture frame within seconds of being taken.



In addition to the revolutionary Home, Sony also announced a new first-party title from Sucker Punch called infamous. Although it was widely rumored that this developer would be doing a Sly 4 on PS3 and debuting the thieving raccoon on PSP, the Bellevue Washington-based third-party studio went with a darker next-generation sandbox game. The press conference was also the first place to hear about another Gran Turismo 5 stepping stone, GT5 Prologue. Not a peep about Gran Turismo Mobile.

The choices-filled inFamous is a PS3 exclusive, but wasn't the only one announced that the press conference. Ubisoft confirmed that Haze is only going to be on PS3 this holiday season while Epic pledged the same for Unreal Tournament III. While there'll be a PC-based version of UTIII, modding is no longer an advantage because PS3 will support it thanks to its more open format. That's a next-generation first, something people expected from a more PC-friendly company like Microsoft.

Finally, Hideo Kojima debuted a new trailer for Konami's still PS3 exclusive, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots, the last game in the MGS series. The finale of this 20-year epic will have to wait until 2008, as the end of the real-time trailer told us that it was delayed from TBA 2007.