Sony definitely seems to have stepped up its performance at videogames shows in 2007 – after dominating the headlines at GDC earlier this year, it generated a favourable impression at E3, too, despite the predictions of the doom-mongers. You will, undoubtedly, have noticed the reams of press releases emanating from its E3 conference on Three Speech. To save you from wading through them all, we thought we’d pick out the highlights and let you decide what the implications are for the PS3 in the future.

Exclusives

The world and his wife has recently been banging on about the lack of PS3 exclusives, and E3 brought plenty of good news on that front. Despite “rumours” to the contrary, it seems that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (which Hideo Kojima has said will be the last MGS in which he’s involved – but that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the franchise) will be a PS3 exclusive, at least for a period after it launches. As will Ubisoft’s Haze – a proper, grown-up first-person shooter made by Free Radical who, once upon a time, were the guys at Rare Software who made GoldenEye, still hailed as perhaps the best console fps ever. All-conquering MMO developer/publisher NCSoft announced that it will create exclusive titles for the PS3 (about time we saw a credible console MMO). And Epic’s genre-defining online fps Unreal Tournament 3 will be a PS3 exclusive for a period after launch.

New first-party games

Of course, all the PS3 games published by Sony itself will remain platform-exclusive forever, and there was an abundance of news at E3 about those. Killzone 2 was unveiled with a big splash, and made a deeply favourable impression on all those who were lucky enough to see it (we’ll report back in greater detail soon, when Sony brings it to 3Rooms).

A new intellectual property was unveiled, in the form of Infamous, which is being developed by Sucker Punch, of Sly Cooper fame – all we know is that it will be an action-adventure game in which you play a superhero, and your powers influence the environment. Sounds very Heroes. In time-honoured fashion, there will be a Gran Turismo 5 Prologue before we get the full game. Adrenalin-inducing next-gen slash-em-up Heavenly Sword is nearly here, as is the innovative, PlayStation Eye-controlled Eye of Judgment and the dragon-riding Lair. And Naughty Dog, of Jak & Daxter (and original Crash Bandicoot, when it was good) fame are bringing us Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

And the rest

Apparently, “this fiscal year”, which we presume means until March next year, we will be treated to over 100 new third-party titles for the PS3. Among which, of course, are such mere trifles as Grand Theft Auto IV, Silent Hill V, Devil May Cry 4 – we could go on for ages. And we’ll also be able to buy the long-rumoured PSP Slim & Lite (as it will be called over here).

Of course, the announcement of a $100 price-drop on the 60Gb PS3 in the US grabbed plenty of headlines, and we’ll find out tomorrow what the score on that front is in Europe. One thing worth bearing in mind, though, which Sony didn’t make clear – that US price-drop is effectively temporary, as Sony is phasing out the 60Gb PS3 in favour of the new 80Gb one in the US, so when all stock is sold, the 80Gb version will effectively supersede the 60Gb one. We’ll have to wait for Sony to tell us what will happen in the UK. Tune in again tomorrow, when we’ll have loads more information for you.

By Steve Boxer