PS3 live update
It's a late kick-off at Sony's E3 press conference at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, where eager attendees were subjected to a lengthy delay. Kaz Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment America's president and chief operating officer, took to the stage, two PS3's behind him, and immediately told onlookers that the PS3 is the biggest risk and the biggest project in the history of Sony.
Following Hirai's aural parading of the superb global shipment statistics of the PS2 and PSP - no surprises there- he enthused on the PSP greatest hits collection, which includes Ape Escape and Wipeout Pure.
Onto the PS3 and, after talking us through the 'already known' key features of the console,he told us that the PS3 will ship with a hard drive as standard, and that there will be playable PS3 games at E3 on the final piece of kit.
Following that exciting piece of news, Phil Harrison took to the stage, the crowd were treated to a trailer of Gran Turismo HD for the PS3, and he gave a brief demo of new card based battle game called Eye of Destruction, where you can move the monstors on screen by moving the cards in your hand - oooooh. After that surreal experience he revealed that the PS3 online service will be totally free and that Playstation cards will be used for online micro transactions. An example of an Warhawk online shop was briefly shown along with the interface of Singstar for the PS3 and a presentation of Genji 2.
During a brief demonstration of how a PSP can interact with the PS3 Sony demonstrated how the PSP can be used as a wing mirror on a latest Formula 1 game - very handy I'm sure. He then presented a new game called Heavenly Sword which he bizarrely played with a PS2 pad. Another spattering of trailers were played, including a game entitled Afrika, Monstor Kingdom, an action shooter called Eight Days and an FPS called Resistance Fall of Man, which will be playable at E3. The trailers concluded with a number of third party titles, including Tekken 6, The Assassin's Creed and Ridge Racer 7. Hopefully these demos will be available to download shortly!
More news and reaction to the conference to follow!
