Sony’s Gamescom Press Conference

Here’s a quick write-up of the things that caught my interest at the Sony Gamescom press event on the 17th August….

Sony is getting into social now – and that’s good ‘cos the PS3 is a networked media machine and needs it.  They announced Mubi, a classic and indie film service that, yes, allows streaming films to your PS3 – but then it goes social and starts adding things like rating becoming a fan recommendations and more.  This is also similar to the Live TV system they offer which has a cool feature that allows for live text chat at the same time you are watching a TV program.

On the hardware side they said that sales of the PS3 are going up (as I expected to hear) but the fascinating news is that the PS2 (remember that?) is still selling loads.  They expect to sell 6 million units this year – which is only 4 million less that the PSPs they sold in the last year. There was lots of push on 3D – which I guess makes sense as Sony also make 3D TVs to (it’s that horizontal integration thingy).

On the games side of things, they had a guy from Limp Bizkit on to demo Medal of Honor and announced that on PS3 it’s going to come bundled with MOH:Frontline for free.  The graphics looked nice on a helicopter mission and it had great audio but I was wondering if some of the effects for explosions were final graphics?  We also got to see more of Killzone 3, which looks amazing – the multiplayer stuff looks top-notch – which is something as Killzone 2’s multiplayer is brutal but excellent.  There was more of LittleBigPlanet 2 on show – looking amazing.  We also got to see some of a new Ratchet and Clank game, All4One and a teasier trailer for Resistance 3.

There was more – but that’s what got my attention.