ALL - Sony Press Conference Wrapup from Leipzig

PlayStation News by Lyndon M STAFF 267 days ago

The annual Games Conference from Leipzig Germany started yesterday and Sony kicked things off with some big announcements on both the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 fronts.

David Reeves, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, started by emphasizing the importance of the Leipzig game conference as E3 was slowly changing to become more regional. After repeating his introduction and German. He apologized to the audience and said that he would be continuing in English only.

Calling it a ¨tradition¨ to start Sony conferences with sales figures he did just that. He gave critics of the sales figures his own bit of criticism, saying that the PlayStation 3 has had a faster sales curve than the PS2 in the first few months and revealed that 13 million units in total have been sold across Europe.

He then revealed the PlayStation 3 would be getting 65 more first party titles by Christmas 2007. Currently the games to console ratio for the PlayStation 3 is 2.6, meaning that for every console sold their herb 2.6 games with it as well in homes (on average). He also mentions sales figures for the PlayStation 2, which is still going strong, and currently has sales figures of 44 million units. The PlayStation portable, meanwhile, now has an 8.6 million install base and a tie ratio of four to one.

After quoting some more sales figures regarding games on the PlayStation Network, he moved on to talking about the new items upcoming for the UK and Europe. First up was a new service entitled Play TV, which will let users change their PS3 into a personal video recorder. The service is scheduled to launch in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France in 2008 and in Scandinavia soon after.

Reeves said there are a total of 275 titles, including third-party offerings, scheduled for release in the run up to Christmas. A few of the titles he mentioned included Heavenly Sword, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Buzz! Quiz TV. Heavenly Sword s slated to be released in the UK on September 19 and Ratchet and Clank is currently scheduled for Autumn. Buzz! Quiz TV is currently coming out in 2008.

Next up was talked about the PlayStation Network, which he said, would there will be a ¨strong lineup¨ between now and Christmas. One of the key titles mentioned here was Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, which will be coming to SCEE territories before the end of the year.

Now for some news on the PSP. The new slimmed-down model of the PlayStation Portable, which was originally announced at E3, was revealed to be debuting in Europe on September 5. The revised system will be arriving in a choice of white, silver and black along with two bundle packs: a Simpsons theme and yellow and a Spider-Man theme with a red front and black on the back.

He then introduced a couple of follow-ups to the Go!Cam which first came out in May. Go!Messenger will let users send text, video and voice over IP messaging between PSP´s connected to the internet. Go!Explore is a GPS attachment for the machine. One thing to mention about this particular ad on is that owners must purchase a universal media disc (UMD) with maps of the region that they are in.

The final announcement on his list was the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2008, a joint initiative between Sony and Electronic Arts, to find the ¨world´s best virtual athlete¨. Registration for this event is open now at www.fifa.com/fiwc.

Things finished up with Reeves handing the stage off to a Sony Germany rep, who introduced the popular German band Die Toten Hosen ( which translates to The Dead Trousers ) onto the stage to perform a song from the upcoming game Singstar.

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