GDC: Phil Harrison Keynote Live Coverage

[American Ninja]

10:18 AM PDT- GameDaily has arrived! We're taking a look at the stage right now before the keynote, and we see a white PSP system, a PlayStation 3 system, a white PlayStation 2 system, and the regular slim PS2 system, as well as a PS1 system. Music is playing and we're waiting on Harrison.

10:34 AM PDT- Keynote is about to begin.

10:36 AM PDT- Keynote has begun.

10:39 AM PDT- Harrison explains the 60 percent market share Sony currently holds in the gaming market.

10:41 AM PDT- David Jaffe, the director behind God of War, comes out on stage.

10:43 AM PDT- A trailer clip of God of War II: Divine Retribution is shown, for the PlayStation 2. Kratos rips an eye out of a cyclops, rides a phoenix and rips its wings off, and tears apart a wild boar. Audience applauds.

10:49 AM PDT- A clip for Loco Roco is shown, featuring water balloon-like creatures through a colorful presentation.

10:51 AM PDT- A new PS3 duck demonstration is shown, similar to that of the one from last year's E3 presentation.

10:57 AM PDT- A demo showing a thousand knights getting blasted is shown. Looks very cool, with bodies scattered about.

10:59 AM PDT- A clip featuring a grey sports car in a desert is shown, and looks just as impressive as the previous demo.

11:02 AM PDT- A Getaway demo is shwon, with the camera being moved around in real-time.

11:03 AM PDT- Warhawk is shown. The water effects look fantastic, as does the scattering of gunfire and the clouds.

Source: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12200

Edited March 22, 2006 by American Ninja

[Laughing-Man]

Well at least the HDD is confirmed to come with the console.

[American Ninja]

Here is mor einfo from another site:

The Advanced Media Network is live from Sony's Keynote address at the Game Developers Conference. Check this page regularly for a complete, live update from the show.

1:38 - Phil Harisson Takes the stage.

1:40 - Over 6,000 PS2 titles, with 1 billion sold in total

1:41 - Describes the continued sucess of the Playstation 1

1:41 - Playstation 2 is still key, with games such as God of War 2 in development.

1:42 - David Jaffe, creative director of God of War 2 takes the stage. PS3 software to be shown.

1:43 - PS3 videos will be shown.

1:44 - God of War 2 video shown.

1:45 - God of War 2 looks amazing. Crowd roars.

1:46 - PSP is the fastest growing Sony platform ever

1:46 - RSS feeds on next PSP auto update.

1:47 - PSP eye toy discussed.

1:47 - Sony will push gps and eye toy on the PSP very strongly.

1:47 - Development tools for PSP are now $5,000 making it cheaper to develop.

1:48 - GPS and camera updates to arrive next winter

1:48 - Network update hits this summer.

1:49 - Correction, Camera to arrive in the fall, GPS still winter.

1:50 - Wireless connection with the PSP and PS3 - seamless.

1:50 - Loco Roco arrives this summer.

1:50 - Discussion moves to the PS3.

1:51 - PS3 Demo shown.

1:52 - Full 1080p resolution for both NTSC and PAL

1:53 - World wide launch.

1:53 - Broadband connection required, HDD included, wireless connection capable.

1:54 - Middleware is the key aspect of the PS3 -Agei physx, Havok, Epic, Unreal

1:56 - Final development kits for Developers before E3.

1:57 - 1,000 people on screen each with all ragdoll like physics. Crowd applauds. Known as Ragdoll demo.

1:58 - Car Tech video shown. Physics change when a gun shoots at it. Individual paint chips. Crowd Roars. Tires pop and fall off. Video is not pre-rendered at all.

1:59 - Bluray discussion begins, how it effects the quality of game.

2:00 - Tons of space, incredible animations and level of detail. Improved sound. Improved localization abilities given the extra space available.

2:02 - Warhawk tech demo shown. based off the real game.

2:03 - Crowd applauds, game looks amazing

2:04 - Ambient warfare is a key aspect. Hundred of fighters on a screen at once, think star wars space battles. Waves generated after each frame. Individual clouds rendered.

2:05 - Unlimited draw distance.

2:06 - Huge ships in Warhawk vs many small fighters.

2:07 - E3: full demo of Warhawk will be shown.

Big News

2:08 - Sony's online gaming network. Playstation Network Platform.

2:08 - Four basic principles of network, content, commerce, community, communication.

2:08 - World wide gaming network.

2:08 - Standard services will be entirely free.

2:09 - third party game servers can connect easily.

2:10 - unified login capable as well as matchmaking, video and voice chat. Friends list. numerous shops where games can be bought. download to hdd.

2:11 - Pay for online products on the network.

2:11 - similar to xbox live arcade.

2:11 - Network starts when PS3 launches in november.

2:11 - SDK for network distributed next week.

2:12 - Messages can be sent while in a game. You can email your friends from within a game.

2:12 - YOu can buy tracks for a Formula 1 PS3 game on the network. Buy new vehicles as well.

2:14 - Scott Kirkland of Motor Storm takes the stage.

2:14 - Full graphical effects in Motor Storm, a racing, buggy vehicle type of game.

2:15 - Mud in the game reacts seamlessly with the changes in the environment.

2:16 - Mud drys and can effect one's driving.

2:16 - Suspensions are fully interactive to curves and bumps.

2:17 - Moving on to Motor Bike and an ATV within the game.

2:18 - Amazing physics shown.

2:18 - Solid graphics for Motor Storm, but not mind blowing.

2:19 - Motor Storm will be shown, and possibly playable at e3.

2:19 - Ted Price of Insomniac Games takes the stage.

2:10 - New PS3 title revealed, first person shooter, huge weapons, physics in the game effect those shot and the environments completely.

2:21 - Insomniac developing for the PS3 because of its superior firepower, very exited about Blu Ray. Storage is the key for them. Extremely excited about cell.

2:23 - Ratchet and Clank Video shown. Looks amazing as well.

Source: http://psp.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=2655

Awesome stuff! :woot:

wonder if R&C will be on the PS3?!?!?

2:25 - Ratchet and Clank video showcases the game's environment shows robots being made and a ship passing through the world.

2:26 - In the future Sony wants to move away from disk based software distribution to an entirely digital scheme.

2:27 - Packaged games still the main focus, but they really want to push downloadable content. Talk of in game ads and how they could be beg money for publishers.

2:28 - Subscriptions from third parties allowed on Sony's Network. Think MMORPG's.

2:29 - Character customization is a huge focus for the PS3 and Sony's Network.

2:29 - merchandising of games is a heavy focus, as you can put real clothes on your virtual characters.

2:30 - http://www.playstation.com/beyond site is now live. Check it out! You can submit game ideas for them to pick up and develop.

2:31 - Communication is the key to the network's success.

2:32 - Singstar shown for the Playstation 2. Singing game featuring 350 different songs. Example of game you can customize. Users can add images, download songs, and sing with them with full music videos as well. Uses Eye Toy.

2:34 - Singstar is for PS2, but is an example of the future.

Edited March 22, 2006 by American Ninja

[jerry]

HDD confirmation is good (Y), lets hope they keep the price reasonable. Videos I'd take with a grain of salt .. :D

[b mitchell]

HDD confirmation is good (Y), lets hope they keep the price reasonable. Videos I'd take with a grain of salt .. :D

while, they wree all confirmed to be real time.

[jerry]

while, they wree all confirmed to be real time.

Yes but real time tech demos does not equal exact gameplay, I think we all knew that already.

I'm just concerned with Sony not confirming any of the videos as actual gameplay, thats all.

[techLogik]

Yes but real time tech demos does not equal exact gameplay, I think we all knew that already.

I'm just concerned with Sony not confirming any of the videos as actual gameplay, thats all.

Chances are that you wont see gameplay videos this early in development.

[jerry]

Chances are that you wont see gameplay videos this early in development.

Its not "early" by any length, if anything they are quite "late". Developers have had the PS3 dev kit for quite a while now. PS3 was delayed because of Blu-Ray (according to Sony) so I assume they were ready on the games front to launch in Spring.

[OrangeSoul]

From 1up: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148951

11:20 a.m. PST

Examples of network play began with a demo of Formula 1 racing. Following that Motorstorm was used to demonstrate how you can buy stuff in the game. In action the HDR lighting looked sharp, but the poor framerate made it clear this was still an early build. While the texturing looked nice, it was a significant step down from the jaw-dropping pre-rendered demo shown at last year's E3. We'll also have more for you on Motorstorm from E3 in May.

http://www.kotaku.com/

"First, he declined to talk about whether the hard drive will be included in the PS3. Instead, he said that all PS3 games will require the hard drive.

“Hard disk drive is a key feature for the Playstation 3. It is a key feature of the platform.

Developers are designing their games to support a hard drive. Every single game will support a hard drive.”

[jerry]

Hard-Drive not Standard

Seriously wtf ? :huh:

Good to hear that a redesigned controller will be unveiled at E3.

[NeoNut]

I hope buying stuff for games doesn't get out of hand. They can easily ruin a game by releasing a short game with less features on purpose so we have to buy all the extra maps, weapons, vehicles etc that were supposed to be on the retail version. :| (or maybe I'm just spoiled because I'm used to downloading free maps online)

[sundayx Veteran]

now we just need links to the demo videos

[b mitchell]

GDC 2006: Region-free PS3

Prepare for the shock of shockers - every PS3 game from the world can be yours!

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/697/697656p1.html

In a QA session following the platform keynote address at GDC 2006 this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison confirmed what was heavily demanded for import gamers all over the world and yet previously thought unthinkable for a major corporation: the PS3 will be region-free for gaming.

BOO YA

[Corris Veteran]

GDC 2006: Region-free PS3

Prepare for the shock of shockers - every PS3 game from the world can be yours!

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/697/697656p1.html

In a QA session following the platform keynote address at GDC 2006 this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison confirmed what was heavily demanded for import gamers all over the world and yet previously thought unthinkable for a major corporation: the PS3 will be region-free for gaming.

BOO YA

awesome :D

hopefully something like this would make japanese developers that bring games out months after release in japan to other countries bring them out sooner, otherwise peoplare just going to learn the language and import the games

Edited March 22, 2006 by Corris

[OrangeSoul]

Things started off slowly with Phil Harrison speaking of the business angle of their products explaining the whole "Beyond the Box" philosophy that he outlined, which meant the interdependency of the Hardware, Software, and the Audience. In typical Sony fashion various slides were shown detailing the dominance their console sales have had for the past couple of years with the PlayStation's 12 year life cycle and achieving over 100 million in sales. Next David Jaffe was brought on stage to present the God of War 2 video and to explain their decision as to why they decided to keep the series on the PlayStation 2; unfortunately the PS3 is incapable of rendering an orgy.

Moving right along Phil spoke about the PSP and the newly lowered price of the Tool kit which was set at $5,000. He also touched on the new OS features that will be in the next update including Video/Audio over IP chat, an imbedded flash player within the browser, RSS feed support, and a GPS receiver. The PSP will also work in tandem with the PS3 to work as a sort of media server. Afterwards a Loco Roco trailer was briefly shown and that concluded the PSP's section of the conference. The conference quickly moved into high gear and Phil switched over to the PS3. The quintessential PlayStation duck demo was shown only this time in an underwater scene with hundreds of fish with procedural/behavioral animation swimming about.

He then reaffirmed a few PS3 details such as full Backwards Compatibility (if TRC), Full Blu-Ray Disc support, support for all display resolutions and HDMI. Again the Global Launch was touched upon although the date has been moved up to early November with a million unit production schedule per month. 16 companies were included in the Tools/Middleware of the system with the highlights being Unreal Engine 3, Ageia, and Havok Complete XS 3.3. In June these software tools will be finalized. By E3 the Cell, RSX, Blu-Ray Drive, and controller will be finished and shown.

Another tech demo was shown and co-developed with Ninja Theory which had a thousand characters reacting to complex rag doll physics. The graphics were all PS2-caliber with nice post processing effects such as depth of field.

The next demo was a demonstration of a yet unannounced vehicular game that involves complex destruction of cars. The demonstration demonstrated how detailed physics can be when applied to objects, which in this case was shooting a car.

Phil then moved on to more slides showcasing the optimum scenario of the 100:1 ratio of media capacity to system ram, of course this was done to place the Xbox 360 in last place behind most other consoles. He then presented how the large capacity format of BD can help developers achieve a Global SKU where they can have all the translated speech, video, and text on one BD.

The Getaway demo was shown yet again showing the importance of a large format since the single area of the demonstration was several hundred MB. The highlight of the conference began with the Warhawk demonstration. GDC essentially confirmed that everything game related Sony showed at E3 was purely rendered footage and was no indication of the final product.

Warhawk, while looking great, was essentially a barren section of ocean with a lot of fighter ships (they were aiming for a hundred for the final game) going around destroying larger vessels and some nice looking water (wave simulation with procedural animation) and clouds (volumetric raytracing). Overall it was a great demo but a far cry of what was shown last year and gave a nice sobering introduction to the rest of the demos which was shown towards the end. Fortunately it will be playable at E3.

Afterwards Phil decided to speak about what has been known as the PlayStation Hub. The internal name is PlayStation Network Platform which essentially completely imitates Xbox Live in virtually every way and launches with the system. They highlight their "open-internet" philosophy with the network and spoke largely about user made content and downloadable software/media. If you're familiar with Xbox Live then you know exactly what Sony will be doing. The one interesting feature is that they mentioned that games could be run off the HDD which works in tandem to their goal of providing a network retail channel.

The final production environment for the PlayStation Network Platform will be available in September, barely marking it before launch.

Next up was Motorstorm and just like Warhawk was no where near the E3 target render. The car models and physics were decent although the texturing and the environment was PS2 level of quality. The real star of the demonstration was the deformable terrain which worked quite well with the physics of the cars. The demo also had HDR, post processing effects, and occlusion.

The next game was Resistance, the title formally known as I-8. Out of all the games this one was the farthest along but unfortunately the least interesting. It was your standard FPS affair with highly linear levels, decent A.I. and moderately interesting weapons. The lighting/texturing/modeling was all decent but nothing groundbreaking.

The next title from Insomniac was a bit more interesting and also confirmed that the Ratchet & Clank series is moving to the PS3 in fine form. The demo was a large and vast city environment similar to R&C with a massive amount of cars on screen and some great depth of field.

Unfortunately that was the last of the PS3 demos and Phil moved on to their "Wheel of Fortune" which was a chart about all the options companies have to sell their products. It was comprised of: packaged games, network sales, episodic content, in-game advertising (Socom was used as an example), subscriptions, mobile gaming, game object sales, and merchandising. With the keynote wrapping up Phil touched upon the e-Distribution initiative that all SCE studios will be undergoing.

Finally the Singstar series of games were shown and that ended the keynote.

prepare to be disappointed when the videos come out comparing E3 videos

http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2006/3/22-53

[b mitchell]

prepare to be disappointed when the videos come out comparing E3 videos

http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2006/3/22-53

disappointment only comes when one cant tell the difference between CG targets and real-time footage. Those people would be disappointed no matter what.

[jerry]

disappointment only comes when one cant tell the difference between CG targets and real-time footage. Those people would be disappointed no matter what.

The blame falls on Sony too for misleading people.

[-Anthony]

Who cares about the videos. I know I stopped after what EA did with that Madden. And why are you bashing videos you haven't seen ?

An Xbox Live aracade style shop here ? Now they have everything (from xbox live lol)

Confirmed HD ? HELL YAH

Region Free ? Holy ****.

Will it stop ?

Could somebody explain more about this e-mailing from the console ?

Edited March 23, 2006 by Mhi

[Cameron Guy]

Sorry, but 360 died today. I just read the Gamespot impressions about Warhawk and what a dawn sensation

Will be funny see Microsoft loose again.

[giga Veteran]

Sorry, but 360 died today. I just read the Gamespot impressions about Warhawk and what a dawn sensation

Will be funny see Microsoft loose again.

You're a funny guy. Really, I mean it.. :rofl: :laugh:

[b mitchell]

The blame falls on Sony too for misleading people.

um, there has been no misleading on videos...if there were any (aka killzone) its the developer's fault.

[-Anthony]

Well, thanks Microsoft without you to push Sony none of these would be possible.

[techLogik]

Its not "early" by any length, if anything they are quite "late". Developers have had the PS3 dev kit for quite a while now. PS3 was delayed because of Blu-Ray (according to Sony) so I assume they were ready on the games front to launch in Spring.

Yes you are absolutely right, the developers have had their dev kits for quite a while now. However, considering the PS3 launch is now in November, they now have months more of work ahead of them--Their work is far from being finalized. Remember, X360 first had their playable games at E3 and the consensual reaction was rather, "lackluster". Sony does not want to be in the same situation. If you want to compare the SDK cycle with the X360, PS3 devs have been allowed a lot more breathing room this time around, let's just hope they don't waste that.

[jerry]

um, there has been no misleading on videos...if there were any (aka killzone) its the developer's fault.

There wasnt any misleading on videos? I guess the videos shown at last years E3 were all gameplay .. /sarcasm

I think only FN3 and UT2007 was "real-time" and all other videos were just nice CG Target videos. Mixing them together and confusing public is what they did wrong.

Yes you are absolutely right, the developers have had their dev kits for quite a while now. However, considering the PS3 launch is now in November, they now have months more of work ahead of them--Their work is far from being finalized. Remember, X360 first had their playable games at E3 and the consensual reaction was rather, "lackluster". Sony does not want to be in the same situation. If you want to compare the SDK cycle with the X360, PS3 devs have been allowed a lot more breathing room this time around, let's just hope they don't waste that.

You are right. I think the 360 dev kits were delivered just months ahead of PS3 dev kits and the developers got very little time in the case of 360. Thankfully they had easy dev tools to deliver something 'good' so soon.

Anyway what I'm confused is if Sony is recently let their devs know they were delaying the launch. So if the devs were following their original roadmap, they should've been 70-80% complete in the dev process.

I just read that the real-time videos shown today were ready in Dec 05, why the @#%& are they showing us something "old"?

[yankee lion]

There wasnt any misleading on videos? I guess the videos shown at last years E3 were all gameplay .. /sarcasm

I think only FN3 and UT2007 was "real-time" and all other videos were just nice CG Target videos. Mixing them together and confusing public is what they did wrong.

You are right. I think the 360 dev kits were delivered just months ahead of PS3 dev kits and the developers got very little time in the case of 360. Thankfully they had easy dev tools to deliver something 'good' so soon.

Anyway what I'm confused is if Sony is recently let their devs know they were delaying the launch. So if the devs were following their original roadmap, they should've been 70-80% complete in the dev process.

I just read that the real-time videos shown today were ready in Dec 05, why the @#%& are they showing us something "old"?

You gotta understand, this is GDC, a tiny little show that the public is barely aware of. You gotta save the big guns for E3. :)