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Six Week E3 Countdown: What To Expect From Sony

We here at Lo-Ping are pumped for E3, we know you are too. You’re an avid gamer who likes to stay up to date on the latest and greatest news of the industry, whether you’re reading up about it on a website or watching a live stream of the Video Game Awards show, suffering through all the celebrity crap just to get to the new game trailers.

We’ve decided that we’re going to get the E3 ball rolling a little early with this six part series which covers everything about the show; from its humble beginnings to our most beloved (and worst) memories of the expo, as well as spilling the beans on the rumours and what we each expect to see from each of the big three conferences.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Part 1: What You Need To Know About E3 [1]

Part 2: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly [2]

Part 3: Our Predictions And Why We Love E3 [3]

Part 4: What To Expect From Microsoft [4]

Part 5: What To Expect From Sony [5]

Part 6: What To Expect From Nintendo [6]

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UPDATE: the latest news about Sony’s E3 conference is that they’re going to have an event lasting FIVE HOURS, the first two hours will be as usual with a keynote conference but in a surprise announcement it turns out that a three hour special event will follow. We have a strong feeling that it will focus on Sony’s latest handheld technology, the Next Gen Portable (NGP).

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Just like last week, let’s get the Playstation Move stuff out of the way first; Sony has been very quiet about PS Move’s role at this year’s E3, we’re expecting to see a bit more from the Sorcery game which made good impressions last year, displaying full 1:1 movement with the characters hand as he performed actions like waving his wand, giving a magic potion vial a shake and then consumed said potion. Sports Champion proved to be a very popular game with the release of the Move so we’re fully expecting a sequel to at least be mentioned. Finally we expect a demonstration of Resistance 3 with the PS Move is a strong possibility, with the game due out this September it’d be a good time to start getting more awareness of the game. What else we could expect to see is anyones guess.

[7]

We’ve got a feeling that after the disasterous hacking of Sony’s Playstation systems which knocked the services offline for more than a month, we should expect some mention of the whole episode and another public apology. What better way could there be to lighten everyones move about the whole thing than everyones favourite VP, Kevin Butler. The character captured the hearts of gamers with his hilarious Playstation 3 ads and last year made an appearence at E3 to promote the Playstation Move. It’s possible that Sony might just make light of a dark situation with Kevin Butler to poke fun at themselves, saying that…anything with Kevin Butler would be good enough for us.

Now…onto the real gaming stuff.

As certain as the Sun rising in the East and setting in the West, Naughty Dog will give a demonstration of one of PS3’s flagship franchises, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Two years ago we were left stunned by the level of detail as we saw Drake climbing a hotel in India only for that buildings foundations to fall apart with real-time physics, after seeing the improvement in graphics from U2 to U3 and the amazing fire effects in the burning chatteue gameplay video, we’re looking forward to seeing if Naughty Dog can get an even louder noise out of us this year.

Be warned though, Sony is one of the biggest players in the 3DTV market and it shouldn’t come as a shock to see them demonstrate Uncharted in 3D, meaning those of you watching from your computers at home might have to miss out on the beauty of the game because of the distortion needed for the 3D effect to work for those in the auditorium.

[8]

Another certainty about Sony’s conference this year is the thing that will replace the PSP’s in our pocket. Back in January we were shown Sony’s latest handheld gaming console, the Next Gen Portable (Don’t worry, NGP is just a codename). The handheld demonstrated graphics so great they could rival the Playstation 3, with games like Killzone, Uncharted and Wipeout, there was even a tech demo showing Metal Gear Solid 4’s in-game engine running flawlessly. We’re just going to assume the machine is powered by miracles and happy thoughts.

Along with an unannounced number of games being shown for the handheld, we also expect to hear details such as pricing, release date and of course…the official name of the machine (I’m putting all my money on “PSP2”).

[9]

Just a few days ago, Sony announced that select PSP games will be enhanced to a “Remastered Series”, which allows them to be played on Playstation 3 with high definition visuals, DualShock controls and stereoscopic 3D. We’re sure to see more of this at E3 but for now, the idea of playing Monster Hunter and MGS: Peace Walker on a 50″ HDTV has a lot of us drooling at the mouth.

As far as rumours go; Santa Monica Studios, Polyphony Digital and Valve have all been mentioned as announcing new titles on many credible gaming websites. Valve recently stated that they wouldn’t be travelling to E3 this year but if you set your memory back to E3 2010, Valve were absent from the official Exhibitor list only for Portal’s GLaDOS to interrupt the Sony conference last year, followed by an appearance from Gabe Newell and the announcement of Portal 2 on PS3, they’re just as good at internet trolling as they are at making games so don’t rule them out completely.

Finally, just like Microsoft has a close relationship with Call of Duty when it comes to E3 conferences, Sony is known for showing off the latest from the Assassin’s Creed franchise. AC: Revelations was officially revealed at the beginning of May this year, concluding the final chapter of Ezio’s story and is expected for release this Christmas.

[10]

So that’s it folks, that’s all the information we’ve managed to gather. Will we be right about the predictions? We hope so!

Check back with us next week when we’ll be turning our heads to Nintendo and what the kings of innovation have in store for us. Or follow us on Twitter [11] to receive the latest stories as they’re announced