Sony keeps the best for last at E3

Sony's conference started pretty slow, like each and every Sony conference at E3 in the last few years.
They've shown off some quite strong dedication to 3D gaming, but I'm still not persuaded at all about it's real strength. Sure, it may be a nice addition to the real big spenders (TVs and equipment to get the real 3D equipment are indeed a costly affair), but in the end I'm afraid that it won't touch most gamers with a "normal" budget, at least for a while. That, and the glasses.

The presentation of Move surprised me. What surprised me negatively is the absence of a bundle with two controllers. Why? Because some games actually seem to require two controllers for (which is in my opinion the major weak point of the hardware) , so such a bundle should be definitely justified, if not indispensable.

On the other hand, I've been surprised positively by the fact that Sony didn't just show the same launch games that they had already shown previously, but went beyond them, showing new titles. Sorcery is definitely interesting, not only in itself, but for something that I didn't expect to see at this stage of development: The response of the move was not just very precise, it was also apparently completely lag-free, something that I decidedly can't say about anything shown for Kinect or even in previous showings of the Move itself.

If such instantaneous and precise response will really translate into all Move-enabled games, the promise of meaningful core-oriented motion gaming might really be fulfilled. For someone like me, that's a bit impaired in aiming precisely with a joypad, this might really be a big deal.

Something that many people missed, partly because not everyone is as interested in marketing as I am, and partly because of what happened right after, is the partnership between Playstation Move and Coca Cola. While the average user may not be very interested, unless he happens to be one of the winners of the contest, this is quite a big deal from a commercial point of view. This kind of co-marketing can easily help the initial sales of Move soar above the competition, given the extreme popularity of the Coca Cola soft drinks everywhere in the world. By securing this partnership Sony managed to grant Move and the PS3 an enormous amount of visibility through the holiday season.

When people were starting to wonder about the lack of big announcement, the man that can only be defined as one of the biggest strokes of genius to ever hit a marketer's mind appeared on stage: just as Kevin Butler single-handedly saved the whole PS3 marketing, his funny appearance and speech kicked the Sony conference into high gear.

Something that personally pleased me quite a bit is that Sony decided not to move on from the PSP just yet. On the contrary, they shown that they're ready to increase and improve their support to their handheld console to face the challenge of the 3DS. The upcoming games library definitely looks great, and Sony seems to be catching a glimpse of what causes their handheld to be so popular in Japan and quite a bit less in the rest of the world: there are a metric ton of great PSP games in Japan, and just a fraction get imported in the west.
The montage was pretty heavy on Japanese games, with some great examples like Persona 3 Portable and Valkyria Chronicles 2. We can only hope that Sony will push on the accelerator, bringing many more to the west.
With a gaming library comparable to it's Japanese one, the PSP would really soar.

The announcement of a growing partnership with Electronic Arts didn't surprise me much. It seems that the HD gaming world is moving towards a bipolar future, with Microsoft allied with Activision and Sony allied with Electronic Arts.
Signals of this have been clearly visible in the air for quite a while, and seem to have been made more concrete quite solidly during this E3.
This might actually bode well for Sony, because while EA's raw power might be slightly smaller than Activision's, they worked very hard lately in stepping up their game. Quality-wise I can easily say that EA's games tend to be quite a lot superior to Activision's.

The collector's edition of Dead Space 2 is quite a great result of this "alliance". The HD version of Dead Space Extraction with move support is a strong selling point to the fans of the franchise that don't have a wii and missed it previously (and considering the abysmal sales, it's pretty obvious that there are many of them out there).

After the presentation of the partnership with EA, something that I would have never expected to see in this life happened: Gabe Newell appeared on stage to announce Portal 2 on the PS3 and to say that thanks to the Steam features that will appear on Sony's console, it'll be the best console version of the game.
Considering that Newell has been the most vocal and even "nasty" critic of the PS3, this is quite an U-turn for Valve, and something that seems to be promising for the future relationship between the PS3 and the primarily PC developer. Gabe looked quite nervous as he talked on stage. I would have too, if I was in the process of eating back my words in front of the whole world.

The subsequent showing of the trailer of Final Fantasy XIV was really beautiful, getting me even more excited for this title (even if I'll definitely play it on PC). Final Fantasy XI was a very solid game, but it had a flaw: it's soundtrack was quite far from the usual Final Fantasy themes.
Hearing something extremely similar to the theme of Final Fantasy VI playing during this latest trailer definitely struck a chord in my heart. You can already see the trailer at the official Final Fantasy XIV website.
To be honest, though, I still hope to see the game published on 360 as well. A big, varied community is exactly what games like this one need, and complete cross-platform gameplay across PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 could turn Final Fantasy XIV from a great games into a real AAA success with a sizable playerbase that will keep it running for a long time.

The biggest piece of news for me was (I doubt this will surprise my most regular readers) the announcement of Gran Turismo 5. On November the 2nd the world will end... Ahem... I mean that one of the most anticipated games of this generation will hit the shelves.
The trailer shown during the conference was probably the most spectacular between all the trailers shown at E-3. Words as "photo-realistic" or "lifelike" don't even start to describe the beauty of GT5. If it'll play as great as it looks, it'll be a surefire game of the year for anyone but the biggest Microsoft or Nintendo fanboys.

But it didn't end there, as Sony had two more surprises up it's sleeve. Infamous 2 looked really nice and hopefully will expand on the very promising beginning that was the first Infamous.

Finally, the new Twisted Metal was announced, and boy, it looks really fun. It was the perfect conclusion for a conference that started relatively slow but grew up in a great crescendo to an explosive finale.

The message of this conference is clear, and Sony fulfilled their promise. Their new attention to motion control not only won't shift the focus away from core gaming, but it will very possibly enrich it. The effect was exactly opposite to that of the Microsoft keynote, and the many that will feel betrayed by the overly casual approach of Kinect will have an easy time finding a new comfy home in the Sony camp.

Between Sony and Nintendo the confrontation is much closer. Nintendo shown a very strong line-up, supported by the 3DS, but their themes and genres were excessively monotonous. Fans of the old and abused Nintendo Franchises and/or of platformers with a lot of focus on cartoonish/childish graphics might see Nintendo scraping a close victory.

Sony, on the other hand, shown that they have quite a lot to look forward to for every kind of gamer. No matter if you love platformers or you prefer shooters or racing games, no matter if you like light-hearted games or deep and complex masterpieces. Sony has some great content in store for you. The same can't be said for Nintendo, that ended up catering only to their own usual crowd.

That's why, in the end, as far as I'm concerned, Sony comes out of E3 as the winner, with Nintendo as a close runner up. Microsoft is the true loser, with a quite shameful performance despite all the money they wasted hiring Cirque du Soleil, all their glitz and the pretty lame attempt to bribe the press with hundreds of free consoles.

Of course and as usual, your mileage may vary. As a closure to this long post, you can enjoy the spectacular GT5 trailer after the cut.