Kotaku
OK, I've just got back from the Australian PS3 launch gathering down at Walsh Bay, Sydney. Beautiful spot, lovely day. The shindig was split into two sessions: the first a presentation by local boss Michael Ephraim, with a Resistance showreel/demo by Ted Price, followed by some product demonstrations. The second session was some serious hands-on time with most of the local launch lineup, which i'll post about a bit later.
There was precious little in the way of big or new information, but we already knew the important stuff (ie March 23 launch, $999.95 price point). The stuff we didn't know? After the jump.
- March 23, AUD$999.95 confirmed as launch details
- There'll be over 30 games available for the Australian launch.
- All first-party Sony titles will be AUD.$99.95
- Sixaxis confirmed as $79.95, Blu-Ray remote at $49.95.
- Australian launch units will ship with firmware version 1.5
- Like Europe, we'll be getting Casino Royale at launch, and like Europe, it'll go to those who are the first register their new consoles on the PlayStation network. Only the first 20,000 to register will score one, though.
- Gran Turismo HD will be available at launch.
- QANTAS are going to be giving away 1000 PS3s in a competition. Sounds great, but considering we're rumoured to be getting only 11,000 consoles at launch (something I couldn't clear up today, either), giving away 1000 in a competition is a bit rich.
- No price point has been determined yet for microtransactions over the service.
Interestingly, the HDD swap-out was emphasised on-stage, two Sony PR men showing a 120GB third-party drive next to the PS3 and saying it's easy to "upgrade".
Having Ted Price of Insomniac there (above) was a nice touch, if rather pointless. He came up on stage, played a bit of Resistance in god mode and that was it. Poor guy looked wrecked, too. Long way to fly just to play 5 minutes of Resistance.Funnily, and I guess this was for the retailers in the crowd, more time was spent in the presentation going over the faffy multimedia features like photo albums than was spent showing games. Maybe it's a sign of the times, I don't know, but some more games talk for a games console would have been nice.
A nice treat at the end of the presentation was a little show by Eminence (above), the guys putting on the gaming symphony I wrote about a few days back. They played a song from FFXII, which nobody knew (and I think they gave away the end of the game with the cutscenes they showed...thanks), but then played some of the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack, which was awesome.All in all, nothing out of the ordinary, but the dates, prices and launch titles are now set in stone. March 23 it is, then. Check back later for some hands-on impressions of the launch titles.
