Makuhari Messe. International Conference Room. At a little before 10am. AND NO ONE IS HERE.

Well, no. That is not true. No one is in front of us. Not yet. The foreign press has been shoved to the back of the bus, leaving the front of the hall wide open to more important people. Mike just ran off to "fix the hairdo" before the keynote kicks off.

Oh. Wow. The section in front of us filled right up, right quick. Mike is back. They are limiting the press to only show 15 SECONDS of the keynote. That is it. You can film the whole thing, but only run 15 secs.

Mike here. I'm back from fixing my hair — another few hours and it'll be perfect. Now the struggle to use a Japanese Mac goes into full force. More Japanese press is streaming in. Not sure if that body odor is European or not, but it's super strong.

Brian is on his knees, snapping pics of the Weekly Famitsu hearthrob editor in chief and president of Enterbrain. We're in the same row. Maybe our seats aren't so ghetto after all.

It's now 10:03 AM. Kutaragi is now officially late.

Okay, this is bordering on rude. Maybe Sony is going to come out and announce that the keynote has been delayed until Spring 2007. They obviously don't realize we have a schedule; developers to interview, campaign girls to ogle, crappy food to eat.

There go the lights! It's on.

Kenny takes the stage. Good morning, Ken! He's thanking the CESA and talking about the PlayStation 3 launch, which will "open the eyes of the new generation of gamers".

They've brought 200 PS3's to the show.

He's inviting us to "feel" the PlayStation 3 while we're here. Eww. Brian just grabbed by bicep. Trailers are kicking in.

Ridge Racer 7. Looks hot. Looks 1080p, but don't quote me on that. Ships 11/11.

Now Sega's Virtua Fighter 5 gets the trailer treatment. Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight is up next. Lots of bullets, lots of mecha, lots of building smashing.

The E3 trailer for Final Fantasy XIII kicks off. Still looks unbelievably (keyword: unbelievable) amazing.

The lights come up and Ken asks "How did you like that?". Not bad, Ken. Not bad.

Ken's talking about the history of the PlayStation and how computing power, memory capacity, and graphics capabilities have improved. He's quite pleased with himself. He's going on about the controller, the advances in controller interfaces, real time response with games and how that requires fast calculations.

He's making a big push on the capabilities of PC's. "There's a breakthrough that is almost upon us", he says. He's seriously namedropping Oracle and talking about networking and databases. C'mon, Ken! Show more video game trailers! He won't stop. Viruses, cell phones, blah blah blah. We want to see Devil May Cry 4!

What he's finally getting to is that we can use all of this data across a network to do things like pull real map and building data and use a controller to fly through them. He actually just said "if you look at the building permit data... the capabilities are enormous". He's talking about how that data could (is?) used in Ridge Racer 7. Instead of actually rebuilding maps based on real locations, he implies that developers will be able to use real map data to build tracks.

He says that that software is now available, that it will help developers eliminate costs for creating art and assets. Hypothetically, using a global mapping system, users can upload data to a world map. He says that pictures from a handycam can be uploaded to this system. "This is not a pipe dream. Not a pie in the sky."

Now he's going back to search engine functions, foresees personalized shopping, 120% accurate search results for individuals.

Gran Turismo is up for discussion. He's going on about, you guessed it, using real world map and landscape data to create locations like the Grand Canyon and Nurbering. Plus, information about cars themselves must also be collected and then transformed into something the PlayStation can understand. The GT slide says "After four long years in the making does the latest instalment [sic] of the Real Driving Simulator bring us one step closer to driving heaven? Try several hundred steps..." Okay.

He talks about opening up the PlayStation platform for developers. Not sure exactly what this means.

Now Ken moves on to the internet. Users will be able to upload, classify, share massive amounts of content. We now have the potential for massive digital distrubution of music, movies, and more.

Now we're going back in time, 12 years, to the original PlayStation. He talks about the manufacturing problems and cheap cost of using CD-ROM technology to store game data. Touches on the "long-tail" business model potential for the 15,000 original PS1 titles.

He just won't shut up about the network! Let's hope that Sony has their act together on the online gaming front, because if it doesn't live up to Live, it sounds like the business could shatter from within.

We're almost an hour in and Ken isn't slowing down.

Sounds like Ken is saying that users will be able to play PS1 and PS2 titles via emulation over the network, no physical optical media required. The translation is sketchy, but I swear they just said PC Engine games would be playable over the network. Again, don't quote me on that. Hopefully, Ken will get to the PowerPoint presentation soon.

Okay, he's going on more about the network in the form of the Folding@Home project.

Ken is about to wrap it up but is going to show us a video. Rhino Studios Afrika comes up. A grassy plain, followed by gorgeously rendered elephant herds, wildebeasts by the thousands, giraffes walking against the sunset. Hyenas! Zebras! Hippos! I am unnecessarily excited to be looking at digital wildlife. A rhino just charged the camera.

Holy crap. That cheetah looks photorealistic. It just took down some poor gazelle. Owned.

And... that's it. That's it? Huh.

Well, there's a Q&A session coming up, but we're off to interview developers. We'll have footage and reactions up later (a whole 15 seconds worth, but they'll be thrilling I'm sure). Bye!