Now we come to the end of our show. Sony’s E3 2010 press conference finally takes place. Jack Trenton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, walks onto the stage. He gives us a tour of the PS3 before he introduces Kaz Hirai to talk about the new 3-D features of the PlayStation 3.

Kaz gives us a short preview of what to expect when Sony launches its new 3-D features for the PS3 sometime next year. We don’t see any footage we just hear a lot of talk.

Killzone 3 – finally, we get a live playable demo showing us the 3-D features of this game. Everyone in the audience is given 3-D glasses to watch the demo. Unfortunately for those of us watching this presentation in the comfort of their own home (me), the effect is useless. Nevertheless, Killzone 3 looks spectacular even in 2-D! The graphics look very realistic and the gameplay looks smooth. I kept thinking to myself, “man, it’s too bad this isn’t on the PC ‘cause I’d really love to play with the keyboard and mouse!” Oh well, it’s still a must buy for me. Release date: February 2011. One other detail Sony mentioned is that Killzone 3 would be fully compatible with the new Sony MOVE. Maybe I don’t need a keyboard and mouse after all.

Kaz continues the presentation by showing us a video of third-party games that are coming to the PS3 in 3-D. The list is impressive but the video itself is pretty boring to us at home who could only watch it in 2-D.

Jack takes the stage again to talk about the 10 year anniversary of the PS2. He talks about how its sales are still going strong today. Come on, Sony, this is an E3 press conference not a Board of Directors meeting. Tell us about your new system and games, not your old one.

MOVE — Peter Dille takes the stage to talk about the Sony MOVE. Throughout his entire speech is pretty obvious that he’s reading from the Teleprompter is constantly looking down.

A short video is shown of various developers discussing and praising the Sony MOVE. This short video goes on for far too long with no real footage of the MOVE in use or any games. At this point in the presentation I realize there haven’t been any big announcements. We’re about 30 minutes into the press conference and nothing surprising has happened. What is Sony waiting for? Come on, let’s get to it! Enough of the ass-kissing videos and sales numbers. I wanna’ see games!

Peter talks about the MOVE having “buttons”, and obvious slam to Microsoft and the Kinect. Where is all this negative hostility coming from? Microsoft isn’t playing the mudslinging game. What’s bothering me more is the fact that Peter still keeps looking down at the Teleprompter. It’s annoying.

At this point I start experiencing some connection problems I don’t know if it’s going on at the show floor or if it’s happening at the gametrailers.com streaming servers. The video keeps jumping back and forth by a few seconds. I don’t really miss too much but it is very annoying.

Sorcery — at first glance this game looks like a Harry Potter type knockoff. You use the Sony MOVE to swing your wand and fight off all kinds of villainous and monstrous characters. It didn’t take very long for the audience to realize that this was a very unique game. The movements looked natural and very smooth. Also the color of the glowing ball on the end of the MOVE changed to match what was going on on-screen. The audience burst into applause several times throughout the demonstration. Very cool indeed, Sony.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 — I’m not really into sports games, outside of racing games, so I don’t have much to say about Tiger Woods. The graphics looked good in the MOVE control seemed natural.

Suddenly the streaming goes all out of whack. The video jumps back and forth a few seconds constantly. It’s really hard to watch the presentation at this point. Fortunately the video returns back to normal before the Tiger Woods presentation ends.

Heroes on the MOVE — not many details are given about this game other than it stars Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Dexter, and Sly Cooper all in one game. Is it a linear action game? Is it an adventure game with multiple quests and puzzles? Who knows.

I’m starting to feel a little bit let down; no real big surprises have been announced.

Jack then talks about a new partnership that Sony is doing with Coca-Cola. It’s something along the lines of how PlayStation characters and products will appear on Coke cans or something like that. I don’t know; I don’t care. I just want to see more games. Please, Sony can we just have more games?

Next, comes what I consider to be the low point of Sony’s press conference. Kevin Butler walks out on stage and performs his Sony “corporate guy” routine before the audience. Kevin starts slamming Microsoft, again! He starts talking about gaming life. Yeah, it’s funny but at the same time I ask, what’s the point of this? Why is Sony giving time to the war with their competitors? Why is Sony padding out this conference with so much talk? Are there any surprises left for Sony? Unlike Microsoft and Nintendo’s press conferences, I haven’t seen anything in this press conference that’s made me catch my breath. Then, Jack makes a big announcement.

The Sony MOVE will be available on September 15 in Europe, and September 19 in North America. The controller itself will cost $49.99, and $29.99 for the “nun-chuck”. Wow! That’s two months before Kinect hit stores and possibly cheaper as well! There will be 15 to 20 new titles at launch and several older games will be patched to use Sony MOVE. Finally, some worthy news!

Sony then shows us another video of some of the games and the technology behind MOVE. I’m all excited about motion controllers. I admit they look good and at this point I can’t tell which motion controller I like more -MOVE or Kinect? Both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages. One thing is for sure, Nintendo is sooooooo screwed this Christmas!

Next we get another series of videos giving us a preview of the upcoming Sony PSP advertising campaign. Once again it’s funny to watch, but I can’t help but keep asking, who cares? Show us more games, not marketing videos!

Sony does show us footage from a few of its new PSP games. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, InvZimals, God of War: Ghosts of Sparta, just to name a few. They look good but they seem to be lost in the shuffle instead of being individually presented like Microsoft and Nintendo did with their games.

Jack talks up PSN and its success. He said that today casting for season two of “The Tester” starts. He also says that for those of us stuck at home (me), we can visit a virtual E3 Sony floor-booth within HOME. Sounds cool, I have to try that later. Jack keeps talking. In fact he keeps talking too much. Less talk, more games, please!

Little Big Planet 2 — they gather up some audience members on stage and demonstrate a few of the new user made levels and features from the game. I suppose this game is great to some people but to me it looks pretty dull. I don’t want to waste my time creating levels, I just want to play them. Sorry, Little Big Planet is just not for me.

PlayStation Plus — now we get to the big announcement that has been rumored for quite a few months. Sony is finally introducing a paid subscription plan almost similar to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE. For $49.99 per year you’ll have access to exclusive content like early demos, free games, themes, minis, and other things. What’s interesting to note is that this exclusive content is available to you only while you are an active subscriber. So if you get a game off of PSN through this service and then decide not to pay my bill next year, it’s gone.

Sony promises that the core multiplayer features that are available now on PSN will remain the same to non-paying customers. PlayStation Plus is for those of you who want more. Honestly, I am in awe that Sony actually did this. All those years that Sony ripped Microsoft for charging for Xbox LIVE, and then they pull a stunt like this! Amazing!

Next up, EA games shows us a sneak peek of the new Medal of Honor game which comes out October 10, this year. It looks good. Medal of Honor, Call of Duty – they both look the same to me now and I can’t even tell them apart.

EA then goes on to show us a playable demo of Dead Space 2. Once again the graphics look great, but this is a multi-platform game. Chances are high its going to look better on the 360 or the PC so I’m not so impressed with the PS3 version.

One neat thing about both of these games is the fact that EA is releasing exclusive content to the PS3. Medal of Honor will receive the original PSOne version of Medal of Honor: Frontline. Dead Space 2 will include the Wii version of Dead Space: Extraction.

Suddenly, in a major blow to Microsoft, none other than Gabe Newell walks out to the stage and announces that Portal 2 is coming to the PS3. Gabe apologizes for his numerous comments throughout the years criticizing the architecture of the PS3. This is a very awkward moment indeed. Add to that, he says that the PS3 version of Portal 2 will be the best version available on the console. Wow! Good thing I’m getting the PC version. They show a very brief clip of Portal 2 gameplay and it looks amazing. I can’t wait till next year to play it!

Sony shows off a few more brief clips of games to come.

Final Fantasy XIV: Online — I’m not really final fantasy guy myself so all I can say is that it looks pretty much like the previous one.

Mafia II – I’ll probably end up getting this one on the PC, but Sony is promising exclusive day one content for this game so that may end up being a game changer.

Assassin’s Creed: brotherhood — once again another game with day one exclusive content for the PS3 version. They showed a multiplayer trailer but I had no idea what was going on. I looked good though.

At this point in the conference it strikes me that Sony is really pushing itself into Microsoft’s territory. All of these big exclusives should force the big MS to act fast.

Sony then concluded this segment of the presentation by showing a video of some of the upcoming PS3 games. Not all of them were exclusives though. I thought this was the end of the show. It was almost 2 hours later and I was ready to go eat lunch. No such luck, Sony still had a few more announcements.

Gran Tourismo 5 – this game looked amazingly real with awesome graphics, however this is not my type a racing game. Destruction racing is my thing and there was none of that to be seen in this game. To those of you interested in this game, November 2, this year is the day you want to remember. This game is also 3-D compatible right out of the box.

Infamous 2 – I’ve never gotten around to playing the first game, but I promise I’ll get to it one day. The sequel looked great and I’d love to give it a try. I just have to beat the first one.

Finally, to the surprise of everyone on stage Sony rolled out an actual life-size ice cream truck from the Twisted Metal franchise. That’s right Twisted Metal returns to the PS3 next year. They showed a short multiplayer demo which looked both good and bad. Graphically it looked like it still needed a little bit of work. Some of the explosions didn’t look right and it was also a little choppy. The game isn’t coming out till 2011 so I’m sure they’ll fix those issues by then. Gameplay wise, it looked really fun. The ability to recklessly shoot at your opponents with all kinds of crazy weapons and vehicles looked fantastic. I’ll have to keep my eye on this one.

Jack Trenton comes on stage one more time to close out the show. That’s it! The presentations are over. Now it’s time to walk the floor and try everything out – unless you are stuck in your home like me L.

I just finished watching Nintendo’s E3 2010 press conference. Going into this press conference I really wasn’t expecting much from Nintendo. I had no idea which games they were going to announced and what new features they’re going to show off. Here’s my breakdown of the show.

Reggie Fils-Aime steps out onto the stage to introduce the show. She says that technology is a tool and that “experience” is better than “technology”. He’s right, except you can’t have very many great experiences if your technology comes up short – “hint, hint” – Wii HD please?

Nintendo gets right down to business and shows off a brand-new Zelda game: “The Legend of Zelda: Skywards Sword”. The game features 1:1 sword swinging action using the Nintendo Wiimote as a sword and the nun-chuck as a shield. By swinging the sword in different directions you can defeat enemies in a variety of ways. At first it reminded me of the new Metal Gear game on the Xbox 360, but it seems a little bit deeper because of the Nintendo controller. About halfway into the presentation they started having connection errors. The controller wouldn’t respond to the actions onscreen. The presentation started going really bad to the point of where this would end up on YouTube as another infamous E3 moment. They ended this presentation with a release date of 2011.

Mario Sports Mix — at first I thought this was just going to be another Mario sports game. As it turns out this is many Mario sports games mixed into one! Mario and his pals will be able to play soccer, volleyball, dodge ball, and basketball just to name a few. The graphics looked great in the gameplay looked pretty fun. Release date: sometime 2011.

Next, Reggie spends a few moments talking about the Wii and its sales. He plays up how Nintendo had its biggest Christmas last year and how its games continue to outsell its competitors combined. It almost like he’s convincing the audience that there is still some life left in the Wii. Just get back to the games, Reggie.

Wii Party — Nintendo shows off this online multiplayer party game. It features 13 different party games combined into one. The game looks a lot like Wii sports and uses your Mii avatars. It basically looks like kid stuff and uninteresting to me.

Just Dance 2 — obviously a sequel to Just Dance. You basically “just dance” swinging the Wiimote around. This game looked mundane and dated especially after seeing yesterday’s Dance Central on the Xbox 360 using NO controller.

At this point in the presentation I start getting bored. I expect the next group of games to be just as equally uninteresting. Boy, was I wrong.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn — I’m not really an RPG guy so I don’t have much to say about this game other than for a DS game this looked pretty sweet. Graphics looked great and it looked like it would appeal to core gamers too. Good job, Nintendo.

Goldeneye — okay so this is a remake of the original N64 classic. This was actually leaked last night so I knew it was coming. I don’t know how Nintendo did it but apparently they are able to port the original Rare (now Microsoft owned) game to the Wii. Graphics looked great, gameplay looked intense — one huge disappointment: Daniel Craig as James Bond? What! This was Pierce Brosnan’s movie! Maybe that was part of the arrangement that Nintendo made with a Rare to get the game on the Wii. One other thing that stuck out was the fact that this was a full retail game and not a Wiiware downloadable title. That’s odd; Nintendo doesn’t have enough GameCube games to port over to the Wii? Now they have to port over and N64 games?

Disney’s Epic Mickey — Warren Spector came out onstage to show off this new game. The game takes place in a wasteland called “Venture Land”. This land is full of lost and forgotten characters from Disney’s past. I was really looking forward to learning more about this game and was not disappointed by the presentation. This is a corrupted land and you must make use of both paint and paint thinner to save this world. Mickey has the ability to erase and restore characters. Apparently this game will have some kind of a “moral” system. You’ll be able to choose whether you want to save characters or erase them completely. This will affect later levels and characters you encounter. The game is also a mixture of adventure, platforming, and RPG and uses very different art styles for its different levels. This game looks fantastic and I can’t wait to try it out. No release date given.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn — obviously a new entry into the Kirby franchise. This game looks like it takes place in the world of cloth and fabric. I must say this is a really cool idea and looked amazingly great on the Nintendo Wii. Release date: fall 2010.

It’s at this point in the conference that I start to realize, “Wow! Nintendo really has their act together this year! There are some great games coming out to the Wii!”

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies — this is a Japanese game and is now making his entry to the US. Once again I’m not really RPG guy so I won’t say much about this game other than it’s coming out June 11 and will have a lot of social networking features too.

Metroid: Other M — this game was first announced at last year’s E3 and we haven’t heard much of it since. The video that they showed looks like it has amazing graphics and great action. It looks like the mix of 2-D and 3-D action and puzzles. Release date: August 31 of this year! No way! Good job, Nintendo and Team Ninja.

Donkey Kong Country Returns — this game is made in the tradition of the original Rare classic on the and 64. Amazingly cool cartoony art style with lots of fast and furious action. I can’t wait to give this will try; it looks really fun!

It dawns on me at this point that Nintendo is finally focusing on its key franchises and giving core gamers what they want most — real games. No more stupid Wii B.S. games but actual CORE games! Fantastic job, Nintendo, you really blew me away this year! I may actually go out and buy a Wii now.

Nintendo 3DS — finally the new Nintendo 3DS is revealed in all its glory. Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, comes out on stage and shows off the new device. It has two screens like the previous model – the top screen being widescreen the bottom screen being touchscreen. The new 3DS will be able to display full 3-D graphics without the use of any 3-D glasses. There will be a slider on the side to adjust the intensity of this effect or remove it completely. New features include better graphics, a motion sensor, and a gyroscope. There’ll be one camera on the front device and two cameras on the back so you’ll be able to take pictures in full 3-D. Another new neat features of fact that the device can play 3-D Hollywood movies out of the box. Of course you need to purchase these movies before you play them.

Another new feature of the Nintendo three DS is that the device will synchronize itself online even when turned off or while playing another game. You’ll be able to receive new data, quests, rankings and other things automatically. Nintendo also announced that they won’t charge anything for this feature.

Nintendo then went on to list a few of the publishers who would be creating games for the new DS. The list is impressive though I will have to see what they come up with before I pass judgment on them.

One final surprise – Nintendo showed off was a game that they had been working on in secret. It was codenamed “Project Sora”. As it turns out this game is actually Kid Icarus Uprising. It is a 3DS exclusive and will feature 3-D graphics. Maybe would have been better if they hadn’t shown that short gameplay video. It was full of bad voice acting and horrible one-liners. The graphics look great, though and I’m sure also like hot cakes when it’s released.

Well, that wraps up Nintendo’s press conference. Sony is next. Time to give them a look and see what they have in store for us this year.

Well, I’ve just finished watching the Microsoft E3 2010 press conference. I have to say that it was a very good show though not as impressive and exciting as last year’s. Having Steven Spielberg on stage last year along with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr was a tough act to follow. Anyway, the show has ended and here are my thoughts.

Unfortunately I missed the first part of the show due to connection problems (thank you GameTrailers for presenting me with that wonderful black screen for so long). I believe the show started with few promotional trailers of what they were about to unveil along with a preview of the new Call of Duty: Black Ops game. I picked up the show during the Metal Gear Rising presentation.

Metal Gear Rising – at first it looked like another third person action/shooter game. Then a new gameplay mechanic kicked in – the ability to slice anything from any angle with your sword. That looked really cool! If they incorporate Kinect along with the slicing you’ve got a really cool game. I can’t wait to give this a try.

Gears of War 3 – Cliff Bleszinsky introduced the new four player co-op campaign. Four players! That’s insane! Sometimes I have trouble just getting one buddy to join me in Gears 2. Anyway the graphics looked great, gameplay looked fantastic, I’m very excited and looking forward to this one.

Fable III – I admit I haven’t played any of the fable games yet (though they are on my must play list). Not much for me to say about this game – looks good but probably will end up being more of the same of the first two.

Kingdoms – this is a new game from Crytek the company responsible for Far Cry and Crisis. There was no gameplay footage to show just a brief CGI teaser. It looked like some kind of medieval/God of War type action game. We’ll have to wait and see how this one turns out.

Halo Reach – Bungee spent a bit of time showing off this game. During the presentation I couldn’t stop thinking, man this is more of the same Halo we’ve seen since the first one. There were the same weapons, the same green and purple bullets flying across the screen. Microsoft, just give it a rest. Does anyone realize that this is the fourth Halo game on the Xbox 360? Even Nintendo doesn’t exploit Mario and Zelda this much.

Kinect and Xbox live – this was the highlight of the show and Microsoft spent a considerable amount of time showcasing new features that gold members can expect later this year.

1. The first thing Microsoft showcased was the new controller-free dashboard. The ability to move your hands in the air and control your Xbox is amazing. Add to that the fact that the 360 can also recognize your voice and you’ve got one really cool system! It was a great presentation and you could tell the crowd was really getting into it. They were actually applauding while the presenters were still speaking.

2. The next new thing that Microsoft showcased was called Video Kinect. Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect is also a web cam with an integrated microphone. You’ll be able to video chat with other Xbox 360 users and people on MSN messenger. That was really cool indeed! They also showed a feature where you’ll be able to watch a movie with someone else through Kinect. I have to say that the presenters they got to show this feature looked a little too “wooden” and scripted. Another cool thing about Kinect is that it actually rotates to track you so you’re not limited to standing in one place you can move around the room and the camera will follow you!

3. The next big thing that Microsoft showed for gold users is that ESPN will be coming to live. Now I’m not really a big sports fan so I figured I’d just zone out for now. To my surprise there are actually a lot of cool things that caught my attention. Sports fans will be able to watch tons of games – basketball, football, baseball, college sports – you name it, and all of it live! Also with the Kinect feature you’ll be able to rewind plays, check out scores to other games that are currently in progress, and get history and stats for what you’re watching. Pretty cool indeed.

Kinect launch games – Microsoft showed off a few launch games that will be coming out this November along with the Kinect.

1. Kinectimals — this looks like a kid’s game similar to Nintendogs on the DS. The difference being that instead of raising dogs you’ll be raising wild animals including tigers. At first I thought this was little cheesy but after a few moments, a thought finally kicked into my head (yes that does happen sometimes), my daughter would love this game! And I think that is the beauty of kinect.

2. Kinect sports — once again another ripoff of a Nintendo game – WiiSports. After watching the demo I have to say that it looks really great – graphics wise and motion wise. This is really what the Nintendo Wii should have been in the beginning. It took us four years for Microsoft to finally make that Wii HD and boy does it look great!

3. Joyride — cute little arcade racer also played with Xbox avatars. You can do stunts in midair. Looks neat, I like to try it.

4. Kinect Adventures — this is some kind of obstacle course game. You use your body to form different poses to either jump over obstacles or collect coins. This game looks extremely goofy yet extremely fun! Of all the connect demos that I saw in Microsoft’s presentation this is probably the one game I would like to try most!

5. Your Shape — this is a third-party game made by UBI Soft. Like EA Active which is out on the Nintendo Wii, this is another virtual trainer/workout game. The Kinect scans your body is able to tell your height and size and determine the correct workout routine for you. So far my one criticism about this game is the blotchy orange avatar. They need to do something about that because it just looks awful.

6. Dance Central — this game is made by MTV and harmonics (the maker of Rock Band). It’s basically a hip-hop dance game that looks pretty neat. The whole interface and scoring looks similar to Rock Band and I think teens will really love this game.

Finally, it was announced that Kinect launch on November 4, 2010 with 15 titles. Other details are that Kinect will work with all Xbox 360s in existence – both old and new. Microsoft did not give a price for Kinect so you know it will be expensive. I’m hoping it’ll cost in the $50-$100 range. My greatest fear though, is that it’ll be priced in the $100-$200 price range (making it just out of reach of most homes).

Microsoft then showed a few last-minute trailers. The first was for a new LucasArts Star Wars game. There was a demo of in-game footage that looked pretty neat. We’ll have to wait till next year to see the actual game.

They also showed a demo for a new Forza a game coming out next year which would use Kinect. Along with racing you’ll be able to use the Kinect camera to perform a natural 360° virtual tour of each car. That looked kind of cool but I’m more of a Burnout type guy that rather than a Forza a guy.

Finally Microsoft saved their biggest surprise for last – that being the introduction of the new Xbox 360 model. This new Xbox will be priced the same as the current models and feature a 250GB hard drive and built-in Wi-Fi. Very cool indeed, however, where is the Blu-Ray drive!? It almost seems pointless to me to have a new redesigned and not throw in a Blu-Ray drive. Come on Microsoft this is 2010 not 1999. Get with the times!

Well, that wraps up this year show I can’t wait for Nintendo and Sony’s presentations tomorrow. How are they going to top Microsoft?