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After the showcase of "core" PS3 games, PlayStation Move was shown off next, with Jack Tretton announcing that the peripheral has sold 8.8 million units.
2K Sports was on hand to show off NBA 2K12 with Move support, even inviting Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers to play on stage. It’s interesting to note that Bryant called the Move controller a “remote”—obviously influenced by the Wii’s success, much like the Move itself. Bryant also called NBA 2K12 “so realistic it’s frightening. [The game is pulling off plays] better than we did.”
Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest, a Move-only title, was shown off next. It’s a game that uses the Move in all manner of combat—using throwing stars, the sword and shield, and a bow and arrow. The game switches between these weapons seamlessly depending on how you hold move, without the need for navigating menus. It was an impressive showcase of Move’s accuracy—it really is the Wii technology taken to its next logical step—even if the actual game itself was completely dull. Of note was developer Umrao Mayer pointing out how the demoer was “realistically” reaching into his pretend quiver to prepare an arrow, then pointing the Move at the display and pulling a trigger to shoot.
Shown next was inFamous 2, though this choice was questionable since the title released the very next day. Jack Tretton highlighted the title’s Move support as well as the mission creator, which allows users to design missions and upload them to PSN. He also mentioned that they will include Move support for LittleBigPlanet games, letting users create levels with and for Move. Both features are set to launch in September.
A game called Starhawk was shown as well—though with no in-game footage, just a prerendered scene showing third-person shooting on alien planets. It seems that weapons and vehicles will be dropped on the battlefield in real time, letting the tide of battle turn at any given point. Following this announcement was a teaser for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, a sequel to the classic PS2. Featuring gorgeous cel-shaded graphics reminiscent of a soft pastel painting, this stealth platformer is set to release next year.
CCP Games CEO Hilar Pétursson came onstage to formally announce that Dust 514, the first-person shooter set in the EVE Online universe, would be a PlayStation exclusive, coming both to PS3 and NGP, with Move support as well.
Dust 514 is a persistent online shooter directly tied to EVE Online; the two titles are connected to the same supercomputer and events in one game will directly influence the other game. This sort of cross-platform synergy is virtually unheard of in the industry, and so it will be interesting to see how it plays out when the game releases. Dust 514 has a closed beta exclusive to PSN in December, with the game launching in early 2012.
Kevin Levine, the Creative Director of Irrational Games, talked at length about how Sony convinced him that Move support would not detract from the “core” aspect of Bioshock Infinite, as long as traditional controls weren’t compromised. This was what was missing from Microsoft’s Kinect presentation—the merging of both traditional and motion controls—and that’s why all the games Microsoft presented for Kinect were on-rails.
Levine proceeded to present a gameplay trailer for Bioshock Infinite, which looks very stylized; the richness of color is a nice contrast to previous games in the series. Levine went on to that they had been working on a pet Bioshock project for years, and finally found a platform to put it on, at which point he pulled out an NGP from his pocket. Needless to say, the crowd of games journalists went wild.
Jack Tretton went back onstage to talk about PS3-exclusive features coming to games, such as the aforementioned Bioshock Infinite—when the game launches for HD platforms in mid-2012, the PS3 version will include Bioshock, for free, on the same disc. Saints Row: The Third, a THQ game launching 15 November, will have an exclusive mode and extra content on the PS3.
There is also a Star Trek game in the works for all platforms, set to coincide with JJ Abrams’s new movie next year. The PS3 version will support Move and 3D. The game looks to be a mix of Mass Effect with co-op third-person shooting, and Dead Space with zero-gravity gameplay.
Tretton covered EA games’s exclusive PS3 features for multiplatform games as well. SSX the modern revival of the snowboarding series, will feature an exclusive Mt. Fuji level recreated from NASA satellite data. Need For Speed: The Run, the upcoming cross-country racing game, will have seven extra cars on a bonus disc for PS3, and Battlefield 3, EA’s answer to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, will include Battlefield 1943 on the same Blu-ray.
Hirai Kazuo, president of Sony’s Consumer Products & Services Group, then came onstage to make fun of Jack Tretton’s tie (Tretton retaliated at the end of the conference by mentioning the “Ridge Racer line”) and to talk about Sony’s mobile division. The “PlayStation experience” is not only possible on PlayStation hardware, but also on “PlayStation” suite, a platform on compatible Android devices such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. Hirai emphasized that PS Suite is designed to eventually entice mobile consumers to make the jump to dedicated PlayStation hardware. He was probably talking about the PlayStation Vita, which we'll discuss in the last part of the coverage.
Sony E3 2011 Press Conference Coverage:
Images courtesy of Sony's live stream of the conference.
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