Sony E3 Press Conference (Part 2) (UPDATED)

Be sure to check out Sony E3 Press Conference (Part 1) for some background.

I'm only going to do a short re-cap for Part 2 of the Sony Press Conference, because most of the information is out there, I need to get caught up on the Nintendo Press Conference, and the Microsoft press conference is coming up at 11:30 a.m. PST. I hope they're on time, and make some jokes about being on time (there could be some great "both with our E3 press conference and our console, unlike our competitor, we're on time" hate).

You can get video streams of the SCE Press Conference from IGN and GameSpot:

• IGN E3 Sony Press conference video stream
• GameSpot E3 Sony Press conference video stream (click on the "Monday" tab)

More PS3:

The PS3 will launch worldwide in November of this year.

I said yesterday there won't be two SKUs, but I was a bit off.

Turns out there will be two PS3 SKUs come November 17 -- but both will have a hard drive.

The 20G HDD version will retail for $499 in the US, and $599 for the 60G HDD version.

UPDATED: According to GameInformer Online, the $499 SKU (which they call "The New 'Tard Pack'" will also not have wireless IEEE 802.11 b/g, Memory Stick/SD/CompactFlash support, or a next-gen HDMI out port. That's a lot to give up for 100-bucks, and certainly makes your console less future-proof.

This is expensive, but I suspect due to the components (Blu-Ray, Gigabit ethernet, 1080p, etc.) they're going to be eating a huge amount of cost in 2007 -- some analysts say as much as $1.4 billion dollars.

The new PS3 controller was demonstrated, and looks nothing like the batarang from last year's E3. As a matter of fact, it looks like a PS2 controller, with some interesting features. First, it senses motion, almost gyroscope-like, in 6 directions, which they demo'd on Warhawk. Interesting functionality, but it feels ripped off from the Nintendo Wii, and looks to be a poor version of it. In addition, DualShock Force Feedback will go away in the PS3, because it doesn't play nice with the motion sensing technology. There's also an interesting "guide" button in the center of the controller, which wasn't discussed, but seems to be rip-off of the Xbox 360 guide button. Has Sony forgotten how to innovate?

The rest of the games weren't that compelling to me, though I find it fascinating that Killzone 2 wasn't part of the press conference.

Microsoft Response:

There were jabs thrown in Microsoft, so they threw together a quick, and direct, response. Check out the obviously colored summary at TeamXbox.com, but the summary of the summary is that Shane Kim and Chris Satchell are "dissapointed with Sony's lack of innovation".

Snap!