Third Place: Sony and the Playstation 3

And coming in last, but certainly not least:

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT

To be honest, I was quite bored with Sony's press conference. I was eagerly anticipating some big, high-budget show where they would unveil the successor to the undisputed king of the consoles: the PlayStation 2. Why then was I almost falling asleep thirty minutes into their much-hyped presentation? Probably because it was the same old thing. Okay, there is the PS3 that we've seen a lot of times before (nothing surprising there), and there are the landmark games that we would expect on it. Expect is the keyword of this press conference. Everything was expected. Well, maybe not the astonishing price.

Here is the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4. There is the trailer for Gran Turismo 5. Oh wow, there are some screens of the new Silent Hill, the new Killzone, Armored Core, Tekken, and of course Final Fantasy XIII. Oh, and here are the PSP games coming out. Alright. Some of those games are like on their 6th iterations (oh wait, excuse me, Final Fantasy is on its 13th iteration (or is really like 15th because of FF: Tactics and FFX-2?), hooray!)! Give me something new!

The two most shocking highlights of the press conference were (1) the price of the PS3, and (2) the unveiling of the "real" PS3 controller (no more boomerangs!). These announcements weren't even welcoming surprises. There were purely absurd. I will not lay down 600 dollars for a PS3. Oh, what is that you say? There is also a second model for 500 dollars?! Whoop de doo, it lacks significant features that the 600 dollar version has, so who wouldn't shell out the extra hundred dollars if they were already ready to pay 500 dollars. What exactly do you get when you save a hundred bucks? Let's see:

499.99 vs. 599.99
- Only 20GB instead of 60GB HDD
- No HDMI (High-Def) output
- No MemoryStick/SD Card/Compact Flash slots
- No wireless 802.11 b/g (this feature is worth the extra $100)
- $100 in your pocket.

Uhh, considering all these features you would forego, you might be stupid if you buy the 500 dollar iteration of the PS3, but who am I to judge. You might really really want to save that extra hundred bucks for a game or two.

Secondly, the "new" controller. What the freakin' hell! Sony, that controller is not new. It looks exactly like your Dual Shock 2 controllers. But wait! What's that? No more "dual shock?" No more vibration because of the primitive motion sensors you stuck inside the controller? This is like a ‘de-evolution’ of your controller, Sony. I was hoping for a new, fresh design. But no, your controllers still look very similar to your PS1 controllers. You are working with an eleven-year old controller design! And don't tell me you were seriously going to market that "boomerang" crap. Gah!


Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing spectacular. PSP lineup wasn't stellar. I wasn't even impressed with the graphics of the PS3. Looks pretty much like the Xbox360's graphics, maybe even worse, who knows. And why would I need a Blu-Ray player. Being the primary reason for the high cost of the system, you don't even know if it will be the standard format with HD-DVD still on the prowl. I wouldn't get too cocky Sony. Remember the miniDisc? Mmhmm.

Who's number two? Wait and find out!