Sony had a big showing at this years E3 with some of the most exciting upcoming titles on display. But Sony is an international company and what's announced for North America and Japan might not necessarily be the same for Australians.
Cue SCEAustralia and their "PAUSE" press events. BigPond GameArena was on-site at this week's PAUSE, read on for our report, including Aussie details on the 60GB PS3 and the new model PSP.
Sony PAUSE Australia
Friday 20 Jul 2007, Coverage by Steve
SCEAustralia's all-new bi-monthly event, PAUSE, was held last night in the wake of E3's big announcements (which excluded any Aussie-specific details) so we could actually get down to the business of knowing just how what was announced at E3 would affect us.
With so much spilling forth from E3, this month's PAUSE was decidedly low-key. Not so much in the presentation department, as Sony Australia went to the absolute nines to ensure the event looked the part, filling out the venue with an American sports locker room theme to celebrate all things Yankee post E3. Huddled on our locker room benches, and feeling as though we were about to go out and hit the field for the 'big game', we were brought back down to reality once SCE Aus boss, Michael Ephraim, took the head coach role and gave us the goods on the new PSP's plans on Australian soil.
Early September we'll see the 33% lighter, 19% slimmer PSP, though not in the Ice Silver that was shown - and announced - at E3. Instead we'll have black and ivory versions with equally no word on whether we'll see the Star wars special edition, either (though Ephraim said it was still being looked into).
Ephraim then mentioned the PS3 starter pack (sans US price cut, which wasn't even mentioned), which would include the PS3 with a 60gb HD, an extra controller and both Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm. Good as this pack is, it's still very disheartening we won't see a price-cut here in Australia, that $1000 mark is just a huge mental hurdle to get over in the face of the other console prices, but I digress.
After Ephraim finished up his plans for the 'statue of liberty' play, it was handed over to Sony product managers to showcase some of the up and coming releases for PS3 in the way of such titles as Eye of Judgement, Time Crisis 4 (which is set to come bundled with a specific dual analogue light-gun controller) and WarHawk (which would be the first game available on both Blu-Ray and the PlayStation Network). Each of these games were announced to be hitting the PS3 this year, so stay tuned for hands-on reports, but we were also lucky enough to see the full Killzone 2 trailer once more (this game is looking amazing, by the way) and Gran Turismo 5, which is so close to the real thing, it's absolutely scary.
New games on the floor for us to have a crack at included the latest builds of Lair, Ratchet and Clank Future, WarHawk (pictured with yours truly fighting the evil IGN kids, and kicking ass), Heavenly Sword, Unchartered: Drake's Fortune and the aforementioned Eye of Judgement.
Again, stay tuned early next week for hands-on reports of these games and more, but for now, start saving your pennies for the big games due this year (especially Time Crisis 4 which looks like a massively enjoyable laugh-fest).
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