Taking place in America’s Playground, Las Vegas, CES presented the opportunity for geeks from around the globe to gather around in awe over the latest and greatest in electronics. Everything from high def televisions, cameras, video recorders, car tech, music & sound tech, mobile devices, videogames and so on. CES had it all for four days.
From a videogame standpoint, the event was pretty small but that did not stop Sony from making a huge showing in relation to the PlayStation brand. Now that the show is over, a few members from the PlayStation Universe staff: Dave, Danny, Sarad, and Justin have all discussed their opinions on the show. How did Sony fare? What were their hits and misses? It is all discussed in PSU’s first roundtable of the year.
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Dave Wales (Editor, Journalist)
The Consumer Electronics Show of 2008 came and went again with a flurry of high profile announcements that involved the Sony brand name. A little over a year has passed since the PlayStation 3 was released and a lot of questions were raised about whether Sony knew what they were doing or not. Tons of poor marketing decisions were made that caused consumers to question the company on a large scale. However, it’s now a year after all of the smoke and mirrors and we’re officially on the eve of a Sony takeover of the gaming world for the third time straight.
A lot of people had doubts about Sony delaying the console’s release date to implement the ability to play Blu-ray discs. Fortunately, it’s looking like this was a decision that is going to pay off big time for the Japanese giants, with a multitude of Blu-ray information and earth shattering news hitting the headlines out of Vegas. For many, the most crucial development was from Time Warner, who announced that they would back the Blu exclusively this year and bring its 70% of the Hollywood market with it. This announcement literally sank the competition. Following Time Warner was the umbrella of companies below it, including New Line Home Entertainment, HBO, and the separate entity known as Constantine Film.
This all caused a tornado to pass through CES as the HD DVD camp canceled their press conference and there were no release dates given for future HD DVD’s by any company at the event. Paramount has also let slip that they have an escape clause that allows them to support Blu-ray once more companies have taken the same path as Warner. It’s believed that the company will announce its change in February; for now, however, this should be treated strictly as a rumor.
Meanwhile, Universal’s contract with HD DVD is up and it seems as though no plans have been made to renew it. A lot of people believe this is because Universal is going to test the waters of supporting both formats to see how it pans out. If either of these two companies took that leap to support dual-format, the end is within months for HD DVD.
In regards to the gaming department at Sony, the news was just as big and just as exciting as it was for the Blu camp. The PSP has been announced to have a slew of new updates coming that are sure to sell even more units. Among these updates is the implementation of Skype, a VOiP system allowing PSP users to phone other Skype users anywhere in the world, free of charge. Along with VOiP, we will be seeing the GPS navigation ability that will allow you to download city maps with points of interests such as nightclubs and restaurants. It will also allow you the ability to get point-to-point directions as well.
The PlayStation 3 had a strong showing as consumers got the opportunity to be reaffirmed that Metal Gear Solid 4 would be a PS3 exclusive, despite rumors suggesting it will eventually be ported to the Xbox 360. Kojima has also stated that there will be no delays with his key title as the company has announced that it is nearing its bug testing phase of development. The studio also let the public know that the Metal Gear Solid Online Starter Pack would be included with the release of the game itself. This has put to rest speculation that it might possibly be an add-on that we’d have to purchase.
PlayStation fans were also notified of Darth Vader being given as a PlayStation 3 exclusive for its upcoming title, Soul Calibur IV. Sony also announced that the production cost of its units was about to be cut nearly in half. This would definitely create a huge opportunity for Sony to potentially give out another price-cut. With the company expected to make a profit throughout 2008, it’ll be no surprise if this happens; however, it will be a nice gift to gamers still sitting on the fence.
With all of the blockbuster news happening in those 4 short days in Vegas, Sony fans worldwide are expecting the company and its console to take over the console wars this year. With a line-up of great exclusives at their disposal and big announcements like took place at CES 2008, we can only hope for great things this year around.
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Danny Ramos (Journalist)
Full Circle. These two simple words are what can sum up Sony’s showing at CES 2008. After a tumultuous first year filled with controversy, delays, and all sorts of negativity surrounding the long-awaited PlayStation 3, everything seems to be coming full circle. It seems like the company was riding the coat tails of a great holiday season of sales on the gaming side as over 3 million PlayStation brand units were sold and the future is looking pretty bright from Sony’s camp. They certainly made their mark at this year’s CES by help scaring away HD DVD and stomping on Microsoft’s going away party for head man Bill Gates with the showcasing of many new features, some that had been in the works for a while and others that blew us away.
On the PlayStation side of things, Sony left everything on the showroom floor and showcased the newest feature for the PSP; the integration of Skype VoIP for the handheld, which will allow its users to make internet phone calls straight from their portable gaming system. I was extremely impressed with this move, although it was one that was expected, but it really makes the PSP the only true portable entertainment device available on the market. Sure there are other handhelds that have their own feature sets, but now there is only one that can play music, movies, and elaborate video games, surf the internet, and now it will be able to place phone calls! Somebody get me a PSP quick!
I also found it extremely surprising how Sony threw caution to the wind (because of piracy concerns) and has announced at CES the support for future Blu-ray disc titles to come packaged with a formatted version of the film ready for the PSP. This update will allow you to just copy over the movie from your PS3 to your PSP and have it saved onto your memory stick. This may leave you worried about not having enough space on your memory stick? Sony even covered that problem at this year’s CES as they announced the release of the latest memory stick that holds 16GB of memory! That’s more memory than an iPhone, and the same as an iPod Touch, and neither is a gaming system at its core! CES even marked the announcement of the all-new GPS add-on for the PSP. What handheld device does all these things as well as the PSP? Keep thinking because there aren’t many that I can think of.
Although I never thought I would be moved much toward Blu-ray when I first purchased my system, now I find myself looking forward to new Blu-ray releases. My interest has definitely grown because of the many companies that have decided to abandon ship from HD DVD and that are producing solely for Blu-ray. The latest and probably most important being Time Warner and their infamous abandoning of HD DVD in favor of Blu-Ray at this year’s CES. This was probably one of the most monumental events of the show seeing as when Time Warner made the announcement, the HD DVD folks almost immediately informed invitees to their press conference at CES that their conference would be canceled. I didn’t really see it as waving a white flag in defeat; it was more of having white banners and airplanes with white signs flying overhead signaling defeat from the HD DVD camp. The strong push for Blu-ray at this year’s CES has even led Microsoft to come out and say that if consumers would want it they would consider incorporating Blu-ray technology as an add-on to the 360! I know many people who told me that Blu-ray would never take off now considering buying a PS3 just for its Blu-ray capabilities sounded ridiculous, incredible!
As a launch day adopter of the PlayStation 3, I have had to endure an entire year of having people question my decision-making and bother me by telling me that there are no games to play on the PS3, and I’ll be honest, those first couple of months as a PS3 owner were brutal and even had me questioning if I should’ve forked over all this money for a struggling system from an overconfident electronics company. But here we are, in 2008, and Sony’s coming off a great showing at CES and now it is PlayStation’s time. While Microsoft and Nintendo have seen their big exclusives be released for the holidays, Sony still has games such as LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4 & Online, Killzone 2, Gran Tursimo 5 Prologue, Hot Shots Golf 2, MotorStorm 2, Resistance 2, and the release of Home, and this is just a condensed list for the sake of saving space!
Besides the incredible lineup of games, things are also finally turning around in sales as the PSP continues to make a dent in sales and catch up to the DS while the PS3 has sold more systems than the 360 at the same point in time (both compared a year after launch). It is an exciting day to be a PS3 owner and 2008 looks very promising after Sony has started the year right at CES. Hopefully we can continue to expect big announcements in a couple of months at the Game Developer’s Conference (the same conference that first unveiled Home and LittleBigPlanet) and if Sony is able to harness the power of the hype that now has been built, the PlayStation brand will leave the competition behind.
My sincerest congratulations to Sony on being the winners of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, we all look forward to the great things you will bring in 2008.
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Sarad Jackson (Journalist)
From a videogames perspective, Sony killed the CES event in which Microsoft and Nintendo were pretty much non-existent. For a considerable time, many media publications including PSU have been jumping on the idea that 2008 will be the year that PS3 makes the turn around. While the majority of us continue to believe that, I must say, that I personally will have to wait until GDC to adopt this belief myself.
While I was not able to attend this year, I stayed up late and woke up early just to catch the latest from the show floor. What will probably be one of the flagship announcements from the Sony camp at CES was the announcement of Skype on the PSP. However, I believe that I fall into the category of the few people that does not find this feature interesting. I mean, maybe this would have been ground breaking back in 1990 for the Nintendo Game Boy, but today’s world where most people owns a cell phone, this is pretty much obsolete.
Think about it – if you can afford/own a PSP, then you probably already own some type of cell phone. So the Skype feature really doesn’t catch my interest. What is good, however, is that the calls made between PSP to PSP and PSP to others on Skype (Using PCs) will be entirely free. For calls to landlines and other cell phones, then you will need Skype credit, which must be purchased.
In all, Skype for the PSP undoubtedly expands the handheld’s capabilities, which will give it more concentration. I just do not seeing this feature used by the casual gamer. This is something that the hardcore crowd will eat up however. Speaking of the casual gamer, what I did rave over during CES for the PSP was the announcement of GPS. Boy am I excited to use this! Currently I have no GPS system in my car and believe me; I will jump all over this.
Hopefully Sony will release a peripheral that connects with the car, to make easy usage. This differs from Skype in that it presents a technological feature currently not available to most people. The ratio to PSP owners and car GPS gadgets is not even comparable. This is where I see the success of the PSP coming from in 2008 besides games. Hopefully Sony gets on the ball and advertises both Skype and GPS for the PSP and not just assumes that because it is released, the consumer will automatically know about it.
Onto the PlayStation 3 side of things, there were also some nice features. While nothing groundbreaking, we did learn that Metal Gear Solid 4 core development is done and now it is entered into the debug stage. This means that a release date is just around the corner. However, for a more tantalizing news effort, enter Blu-ray. The events leading up to the show revealed that Time Warner will be producing titles on the Blu-ray platform exclusively. This move put Blu-ray as the dominant high definition format over HD DVD.
The announcement even created such an impact that it pretty much withdrew the HD DVD camp from the show, almost unofficially declaring Blu-ray the winner. With Blu-ray now on top, this will open the flood gates for the PS3 as consumers will be flocking to the console not only because it is a great gaming console, but a Blu-ray player that can also play videogames. I think that Microsoft and Nintendo do not understand just yet how it will impact them. It is sort of like being cut, but not noticing it until you look down and see the blood pouring out.
In conclusion, this was CES, not E3 or TGS in which the soul focus is on gaming. At CES, videogames only account for a mere fraction of what is on display. However, what was revealed and announced from the Sony camp will play a huge factor in the success of the PS3 and PSP in 2008. Perhaps if I were actually in attendance, things would have lightened up a bit.
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Justin Pinter (PR Manager, Journalist)
Alright, so I am just going to make my opinions short and quick to the point. Here are some of the things I found interesting coming out of the CES event.
Blu-ray Wins! Opening into CES, Time Warner announced that that they will go Blu-ray exclusive starting this May. Then shortly after New Line Cinema and HBO announced they would follow suit, giving Blu-ray 70% of the high def market share in studio support. What first came to mind after hearing this news was, "YES! Lord of the Rings will be coming to Blu-ray!", then my thoughts moved to, "Awesome, now this will help drive some sales for the PS3." Now that Blu-ray is accepted as the overall winner, consumers will hopefully begin buying Blu-ray players, and what’s one of the best and cheapest Blu-ray players around? The PS3.
Sony OLED: Now this wasn’t really gaming related, but I found it interesting none the less. Basically this new type of High Definition TV makes even the higher end LCD’s look pitfull. Where as a standard LCD has the contrast ratio of 10,000: 1, the new OLED’s are display a bright and crystal clear 1,000,000: 1 contrast ratio. Also instead of having a backlight to bring brightness to a basic LCD screen, the new OLED’s have pixel illumination, where the pixel emit its own light. For those of you who are having a hard time following, basically these new generation of TV’s will blow your mind.
Soul Calibur IV to have Vader and Yoda characters? This was probably one of the weirdest announcements to come out of the show. Apparently the new Soul Calibur game will have two Star Wars characters (Darth Vader and Yoda), one exclusive to each platform. Now even though I think it’s kind of cool, I have no idea on how its going to work. Light sabers and The Force vs. swords and daggers? I think I don’t have to say who the winner is there.
Stay tuned for more of our staff roundtables as we cover future events!