Sony had its thunder largely stolen by media leaks and Microsoft's pre-emptive display of multiplatform titles such as The Beatles: Rock Band and Modern Warfare 2, but offered up its own unique take on motion control innovation, formally announced the PSP Go and its related media service, and showed off some noteworthy exclusives.
PS3 news:
PS3 news:
- A new unnamed motion control system due spring 2010 uses a camera and two wands and supposedly offers better 3D precision than the Wii-mote and nunchuk. Tech demos showed melee combat, handwriting, tanks and archery.
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves will have competitive and cooperative multiplayer and is launching a multiplayer beta tonight for annual Qore subscribers and people who bought Infamous
- Final Fantasy VII for the PS1 was released today on the PlayStation Store for PS3/PSP.
- God of War III is coming March 2010. Mark your calendars and start planning your vacation time.
- Mod Nation Racers, due in 2010, is a kart racer in the style of LittleBigPlanet, with user created characters, cars and tracks.
- Final Fantasy XIV is a PS3 exclusive due in 2010.
- Agent, a new game by Rockstar, is a PS3 exclusive set in the late 1970s. No release date (or even year) was given.
- MAG, due this fall, was shown to demonstrate its promised support for 256-player battles.
- Assassin's Creed 2 will offer a small advantage to Sony devotees; you will be able to unlock six additional weapons by connecting PS3 and PSP versions (in addition to 30 in the standard game).
- The Last Guardian from Team Ico is a successor to Shadow of the Colossus. No date given.
- PSP Go is launching Oct. 1 for $250. It won't have a UMD drive, so you'll have to buy games online to download into the 16GB built-in flash memory or a memory card (aka no resale value). For the extra $80, you'll get a 3.8-inch screen, Bluetooth support (apparently it can be tethered to your phone) and controls that slide out from under the screen. The current PSP 3000 won't be discontinued.
- PSP Media Go is described as a PSP media manager replacement, but it's really more of an iTunes-style store with a Sense Me feature that will scan your music library and suggest music you might like.
- Gran Turismo PSP is due in October with 35 tracks and 800 cars and ad hoc mode support for four-player wireless races. You can also trade cars between portables.
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, due in 2010, is set in Costa Rico 10 years after MGS 3.
- A new Resident Evil title for PSP is due in 2010.
Here's what interested me from the Sony press conference. Not much.
A few games that just got mentions, like the next Ratchet and Clank Future installment.
Mod Nation Racers, which will be great fun for my 6-year-old and me to play together. Looks like LittleBigPlanet with racing and minus the great difficulty curve that springs up far too early.
Assassin's Creed 2, which I'll get on the Xbox 360 for the achievements. (I'm just not invested in trophies and don't care about six extra weapons I have to get a PSP game to unlock.)
Uncharted 2, which I'll rent like I did with the first one.
The PSP Go - not at all. I don't need a game system where I can't rent or buy games that can be resold (or given away) when I'm threw with them.
No PSP games to speak of.
The wand/camera gizmo looked intriguing, but it's a good year or more from becoming a retail product. I'll wait and see what develops.
If I may share my opinion on Final Fantasy XIV.
To the 360 owners, it was later announced that exclusive rights isn't set in stone. Often when SquareEnix says exclusive it's usually a console system and it was eventually stated to be released on PC as well as PS3 and possibly a later release for the 360. This is very similar to it's older brother, Final Fantasy XI: Online. Which was originally a PC, and shortly after PS2 release (a 2 month difference if I recall correctly).
Having played FFXI since it's PS2 release (Yes, I forked out the 100 dollars for the HDD that nothing else used) I found that SquareEnix's customer support is the worst in the business and they just have no idea how to run an MMO. It almost felt like SquareEnix got enjoyment out of punishing the playerbase at some point during updates, if people remember the news of a Linkshell (FFXI's guilds) playing for 20+ hours to kill a boss monster (Pandemonium Warden) who got physically ill. Immediately afterwards, Square weakened the top 3 (arguably) hardest monsters in the game (Pandemonium Warden, Absolute Virtue, and the already killable Jailor of Love) but caused them to depop after being alive for 2 hours. While this sort of player-punishment isn't the only case it happens to be the most obvious suggestion to how Square treats it's customers who were willing to pay 13 a month. For the sake of suggesting that my opinion on the matter of FFXIV being a good game, I'll list my achievements (so to speak) in the world of Vana'diel. I had spent a large time leveling Dragoon to 75 (A job that I feel SquareEnix added just to add in the Rise of Zilart Expansion and was really unfinished. Because of this, the job didn't quite keep up with other melee jobs and it was very difficult to get groups to level) and eventually White Mage to 75. My Dragoon (DRG is the short term, and will be used from this point forward) had pieces of equipment that would make even the Japanese players, who had a 2 year time advantage over the NA players, envious such as the ever elusive Velocious Belt and Zahak's Mail. I was a member of Kupo, a big player in the end-game scene of FFXI. After all that time, i's pretty easy to notice how little people were happy with the game at all and the only thing keeping them playing was in-fact eachother and attachments to super-rare 1.5% drops.
Maybe it's just me but if the 360 doesn't get FFXIV, which looks like a FFXI clone and what I'm hearing is online play, they're being spared the punishment that is SquareEnix.
My apologies for ranting and bragging about how much time I've sunk and life I've wasted. I simply wish to voice my opinion and help ease any console envy that FFXIV could have possibly caused. Besides, as someone who used to be a hardcore Final Fantasy fan. Ever since the company merger, none of the games have been enjoyable. Perhaps Enix's dominating share has sucked the soul right out of Squaresoft and they're nothing more than money-mongerers.
No apology needed Maxx, that was a well written position. I never played FFXI, so I can’t speak on it. But as someone who comes and goes from WoW, (come back for expansions, max level, grab a lil gear then leave) it sounds like the end game attraction is the same. I always leave because I get bored going after the same boss 20 times hoping to get a low % drop. But I must disagree with you that they haven’t put out any good games since the merger, I found FFXII quite enjoyable. I also have high hopes for FFXIII, keep it single player where it belongs.