E3 2007 blogroll

Last summer, I was in Santa Monica, Cali., covering the E3 Media & Business Summit from Tuesday, July 9 through Friday, July 13. I’m loading my posts from the show here, for posterity, y’know?

Wednesday, July 11, 7:00 p.m.

Sony is behind the 8-ball.

Sales of their PlayStation 3 video game console are, like, half that of their competitors, and they've got some ground to make up.

Which is why they announced, late last week, a $100 price cut to the 60GB version of the hardware. It's an attempt to jump start sales that have been, frankly, lagging.

Unfortunately, their press briefing, held at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, only served to establish - for me anyway - how lackluster things are. Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, hosted the event. While Tretton may be a fine executive, he's not much of a presenter, and he stumbled his way through the press conference.

In previous years, the effusive Kaz Hirai had hosted the PlayStation briefings, but his promotion, to president and COO of Sony Computer Entertainment, meant that Hirai felt he needed to step back from the event.

Too bad, because Hirai had a talent for getting audiences excited with the sheer force of his personality.

Hirai did put in an appearance, to unveil a new PlayStation Portable. Lighter and slimmer, with a longer battery life, the new PSP will be available in piano black and ice silver. A special edition Star Wars Battlefront edition, white with a stencil of Darth Vader's helmet on it, was presented by none other than Chewbacca.

Phil Harrison, president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, was also on hand to show off some of the company's upcoming titles.

Notable are Killzone 2, Little Big Planet, Echochrome and Pain.

Sony claims they'll have 140 titles for the PlayStation 3 available by the end of the year. They need them. A price cut is not enough to get people purchasing the units.

Now it really is all about the games.