E3 2007: The Sony Empire Strikes Back

A new PSP and Killzone 2 lead Sony's charge.

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By Alex Wollenschlaeger

Sony and Nintendo showed their stuff within hours of each other on Wednesday at this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, running all week in Santa Monica, and yet the two events couldn't have been more different.

Parts of the event took place in Home

Where Nintendo was concerned with reaching out to new kinds of players, sometimes at the expense of existing ones, Sony's message was one of confidence through technology and belief in its core audience.

The PlayStation 3 was the main attraction, of course, but Sony's new American boss, Jack Tretton, stopped just long enough on his way there to talk about the PSP.

Sony's handheld has taken something of a drubbing at the hands of the DS, but Sony is in this for the long run. The PSP got a sales kick after its price was dropped recently and now Sony has a new version coming.

The slimmer PSP

The new model of the PSP is ostensibly the same system, but it weighs a third less than the previous model and is about a fifth lighter too. More importantly, the system now has better battery life and there has also been some tweaking to get games loading faster - something existing PSP owners have been calling for for some time.

The multimedia capabilities are still one of the core features, though, and to emphasise this, Sony has included a video-out port. This lets you plug your PSP directly into your TV, allowing you to show your movies and photos and play games on a bigger screen.

There were no pricing details for standalone units, but Sony is planning to introduce the new system through bundles, including a Star Wars-themed one, introduced by Chewbacca himself, that comes with Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron - a PSP-exclusive entry in the franchise. These will go for $200, compared to the $170 of the current standalone model.

Chewbacca joins Jack Tretton in Culver City

Much of the other PSP software at the event had been shown before and included Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow and God of War: Chains of Olympus, but there were a few unannounced games, including a crazy-looking title called Patapon.

But talk soon shifted to the PlayStation 3, with Sony's new Home online service playing a key part in the event. Parts of the talks were actually done from within the service, with Tretton, Phil Harrison and Kaz Hirai all showing up in avatar form.

Home has gone through some changes since it was shown earlier this year. For one, the Home Lobby is now the Home Square, bringing the social side of the online world into a city-like environment. Attendees also got a better idea of how media would be integrated into the experiece.

Phil Harrison gave a Home demo

At one point Phil Harrison took a photo of the crowd that was later added into a picture frame in his personal Home Space. This is just one of the examples of how Sony is expanding the service to include more of the social networking ideas so prevalent today.

But, as Tretton said at the start of the presentation, this conference was about games, games, and more games.

Where Sony is making big strides is in its approach to network-delivered gaming, with PlayStation Network games getting more earnest developer attention than, say, Microsoft's Xbox Live or Nintendo's Wii Store systems.

"There are no limitations" to our games, Harrison said, pointing out that creators could make them as big as they wanted. He showed off some of the games PlayStation 3 owners can expect this year, including a new puzzler called Echochrome, which plays like a virtual M.C. Escher drawing, asking you to guide characters through unreal mazes.

Apart from this one, the PlayStation Network is getting more full-scale games too, including a rejuvenated form of the original WipEout in HD, WarHawk, a new SOCOM shooter, and an action-puzzle game called Pain.

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