E3 2008 Part 3: Sony

Sony spent the week showing some solid new installments in its core franchises but had little new to bring forward.
E3 is over and Sony has ended up being one of the three that I ended up the least interested in, even though I own both a PS3 and PSP. That's right, Microsoft caught my eye more even though I have no Xbox to speak of. Of course Microsoft also caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.
But I digress, this post is about Sony. While the showing from Sony wasn't really disappointing as a whole, it just seemed to be a lot of stuff that we all already knew about. Killzone looks incredible, but shooters tend not to excite me. The same can be said of Resistance 2 and the surprising PSP edition of Resistance.
There was God of War "shown", and by shown I mean we got to see a prerendered clip featuring Kratos. However, go ahead and burn me alive on a steak for it, but God of War never really appealed to me. To me it was always "Zelda for jocks", even if that's wrong of me to say.
I still haven't jumped on the LittleBig Planet bandwagon yet, since I still don't know what the hell it is, no mater how many articles I read or videos I watch. Does it have any premade levels? Is it just a platformer that I get to build? from what i understand it is a side-scroller with 100% user made content. A cool idea, but i will see how far the idea really flys. Either way, it will be very original and should be a highlight of the Playstation 3 library.
one new Playstation Network game that looks very cool is FLOWer, a game that seems to have you blow around flower petals to create unique music. Looks like a great game to wind-down with. And frankly, the PSN really needs more content.
Unfortunately a lot of Sony's big titles were already showcased at Microsoft's show, like Fallout 3, resident Evil 5 and the bombshell that was Final Fantasy XIII being released on both systems.
Other highlights were the news of both Locoroco and Patapon getting second games. this is good news because my PSP has been gathering dust for the short while I have owned it. Those mixed with the announcement of the Star ocean games coming to North America in the coming months will give me something to do.
One interesting piece of news was the new Ratchet chapter exclusively for the Playstation Network that was quoted as being "a movie length ratchet game". It looks like it will be of the same high graphic quality as Ratchet & Clank Future, which would explain why the downloadable game will only be a couple of hours long. It is supposed to answer some questions left open by the end of R&C Future. It leave one to question if we will see another full-length Ratchet game on the Playstation 3 or if these mini chapters will fill in the gaps from now on. An interesting idea, at least.
Sony still has a big obstacle to pass if they want the Playstation 3 to take the number one spot like it has for the past two generations and that road is paved in exclusive titles. Wii has it own set of games unlike any other. Microsoft has a library of its own games that range from shooters like Gears of War to epics like Lost Oddessy. Playstation 3 is going to have to prove to developers that it can move hardware and make it worth while to make games Playstation 3 exclusive which would in turn entice gamers to pick up a Playstation 3. It's going to take more than Gran Turismo, Metal Gear and LittleBig Planet. Losing Final Fantasy XIII will hurt Playstaion 3 in the long run for the RPG crowd as well, since the biggest RPG of this generation will be multi platform and most others are Xbox exclusive so far (Lost Oddessy, Mass Effect & Star Ocean come to mind).
here's hoping Final Fantasy Versus XIII remains a Playstation only game, for their sakes.