Wednesday, June 8, 2011

E3 Special Report: Sony, Livin' La Vita Loca


To be fair, I have to give a little bit of full disclosure with this one.  I do not own, nor have I ever had a lengthy play session with the PlayStation 3.  

There are a few reasons for this, but the most prominent is that I am, in fact, a broke nerd.  I can really only afford to buy games for and accessorize one console at a time and this time around it is the Xbox.

So with this said, I felt that the Sony conference was pretty forgettable, but only because I pretty much don’t care about the PS3 and the games associated with it.

That statement is going to get me a lot of flack with the gaming community, but I need to explain it further.

During the announcements, Sony started announcing big exclusive after big exclusive that everyone was hyped for in the crowd.  Me?  I’ve never really played the games that these sequels were for.  

As an old school Sony fan, I was pleased to hear some of the more classic titles getting new installments, like Twisted Metal, but I was lost on some of the newer ones.

Sony’s biggest two announcements were a 24’ starter 3DTV that I didn’t get a price for that is PlayStation branded.  This seems a little odd as I don’t think I’d want to experience 3D on a smaller screen.  Sony understood that the reason why 3D isn’t so widely accepted at home yet is due to the expense, but what they aren’t counting on is that I don’t want a crappy experience either.  I’m not saying that 3D on a smaller screen can’t work, anyone with a 3DS would argue that fact, but I’m just saying that if I decide that I was going to be jumping into the 3D TV bandwagon, I would do it full-hog.  

Second is the portable gaming system, the Vita.  With a touch screen, a touch pad, dual analog sticks, and a powerful gaming system inside.  

Now I’ve already was a huge fan of the PSP when it first came out and I took it everywhere.  I remember watching “Kill Bill” while waiting in line to see “Star Wars”, playing “Hot Shots Golf” on the way to Disney World, and hacking the firmware to do all the neat things that Sony didn’t want me to do.  Before the system could really take off, my brother broke it and as you know, I couldn’t afford to replace it.

With this in mind, I am quite excited about the Vita, silly name aside.  Of course I’ll never be able to afford it at $250 for the WiFi version and $299 for the 3G with AT&T service inside.

So how was the Sony Conference?

To me, it seemed a little safe and the innovations behind the Move controller do not seem as incredible as what is happening with Kinect right now, but overall, it was about games and Microsoft seems to have lost that fact.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to give my lengthy first impressions of Nintendo’s newest console: Wii U.

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