Good grief! I had an email. Someone asked me: based on my predictions for Sony’s E3 2009 (and obvious desire to work at Sony) how would I construct my perfect E3 2009 press conference? What order would I announce things, what would come first, what would come last - basically - how would I present Sony’s coming year? Well, after 24 hours thought, countless notes and a few re-reads of my predictions post; here’s a special edition of the “Twiggy” column - this is my definitive E3 brief, slide-by-slide.
Just a quick key: bold items are items of “megaton quality”, white italic items are “unknown but speculated” quantities. Of course, it’s worth mentioning, this is the conference I’d put on if I worked at Sony. Sadly, I don’t, so use this as a point of discussion rather than expectation.
- Introductions and straight into the sales chat; “We’ve sold 500,000 PS3’s in the last year, etc” - you know the kind of thing.
- Very brief discussion on the Playstation 2; lifespan, remaining releases [Ghostbusters, etc] montage, sales to date, effect of pricedrop.
- Recap of Sony’s end of 2008/start of 2009 releases - LBP ["100,000,000 levels have been created", etc], Resistance 2, Killzone 2 ["1,000,000,000 kills..."], inFamous, etc.
- Guerilla Games very briefly announce a new DLC pack for Killzone 2 with a short trailer.
- Insomniac Games’ Ted Price plays a brief portion of Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time - likely a boss battle.
- Some talk about the PSN - constantly expanding, figures, Home, video service, Vidzone (the music thing for the UK), etc.
- New firmware update announced to become available directly after the show with a short demonstration of the new features.
- New Heavy Rain trailer and brief demonstration.
- PSN games showcase: Fat Princess, new thatgamecompany announcement, etc.
- Starhawk announced via trailer, followed by a short demonstration and an announcement that it’s on the show floor.
- PSP Go formally announced.
- Price, trailer, release date and brief demonstration.
- LittleBigPlanet PSP trailer shown.
- Montage of Motorstorm PSP, Assassin’s Creed 2, Soul Calibur PSP, etc.
- … Announcement of a new Metal Gear coming to the PSP…
- Download only service detailed.
- Gran Turismo PSP trailered followed by…
- … Gran Turismo 5 trailer and release date (this Holiday).
- Discussion on the Playstation 3 hardware and how it continues to push new grounds.
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Demonstration.
- Massive Action Game (MAG) Demonstration.
- “And what you’ve seen here so far today covers content just published by Sony.”
- Montage of third-party titles, emphasis on Modern Warfare 2.
- “We’ve shown a lot of games for the core today, but what about the casual gamer?”
- The Beatles Rock Band, new Buzz! games, Lego games all showcased.
- God Of War III demonstration.
- “Thanks for watching.”
- Columbo style - “One more thing…”
- Team Ico trailer.
- *Applause*.
- “Oh, and we’ve just one more guest we’d like you to meet….”
- … Hideo Kojima walks on the stage.
- End.
I just want to make a few notes about how I’ve compiled this list - firstly you’ll notice the spread of announcements. I tried to keep the next announcement never too far away. Sales figures were tackled as part of the introduction to put them aside as quickly as possible, and the loss of emphasis on the PS2 signals the dwindling life of the platform. By getting straight into PS3 games like Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time and Heavy Rain, the games are getting deserved promotion, but they also help to ease the conference in and pad out the “boring” stuff.
I saved the PSP Go announcement for the middle of the conference because I feel like there’s a lot of information to get across during this time, and so by breaking that up with both the official unveiling and trailers of upcoming games, it becomes easier to digest. The link I found between PSP Go and PS3 was Gran Turismo; showing a trailer for Gran Turismo PSP and then following it up with a direct release date for Gran Turismo 5 displays brand unity and allows the press conference to move back into Playstation 3 territory with showcases of Uncharted 2 and MAG. The third-party games montage and casual emphasis pad out the show to a God Of War III demonstration which the audience will assume the ending. A Team Ico trailer would then raise the roof as it’s unexpected at this point; given that God Of War III will be played up to be the end of the conference.
Finally, a fresh-faced Hideo Kojima taking to the stage would ice the already rampant applause following the Team Ico reveal. A wry smile and a new Metal Gear trailer from Mr. Kojima perhaps?
Thus would be my would conclude my conference if I worked at Sony.
