E3 2004 on Gran Turismo 4

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnBM01
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I just want a GT rally track that isn't dry and/or on dusty roads. :(
 
It's red, so it could be an R390, however the body shape looks all wrong to me. In fact it looks wrong for every car I think of - TS020, Supra, NSX, Viper, nothing comes to mind that'd fit in... Guess we'll find out as the expo goes on.
 
listening to the press conference now. They dropped the price of the PS2 to 149 USD as of now. They intend to keep supporting the PS2 for up to 10 years to make it available to an even more mainstream audience.

AAA content is listed as GT4, Killzone, Getaway2, Metal Gear Solid 3, God of War. I will keep you up to date here.
 
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Jak 3, Sly 2, some more titles were named.

Now he talks about innovation. First of all Eye toy, which sold 3.8 million units in 10 months. Announces additional first and third party support.

Online gaming
3.0 million network adapters out there, of which 2.1 registered (active) users. Growthrate is currently at 100.000 per month. More than 100 online titles will be released by the end of the year.
 
now we look at some of the online games
shows killzone, mortal combat, gt4 prologue Socom 2! Baseball, some cartoonish golf game, star wars, burnout, metal gear solid!?, splinter cell 2, american football (ncaa I think), something I don't recognise, norrath 2, a quad game, a new Turok I think
 
here comes Ted Bryce of Insomniac games, showing the new Ratchett & Clank which will be online as well as offline. Multiplayer up to 8 players online, 6 battle arenas, online chatting while still holding 60fps (a first for PS2), extensive game management with passwords etc. Demos Siege mode, with 8 insomniac employees divided in a red and blue team, battling off.

The idea is to take each others base. There are vehicles, swings, hoverships, destructible environments, loads of gadgets as in the original game, Bases have automated turrets and drones, node collection helps to take over a base. You can turn palyers into sheep (they want to bring the humor into online play),. you can use magno boots to walk on the ceiling. Target is get the nodes and get on the teleporter. Blue wins. (Looks like a lot of fun, more fun actually than Unreal :D) Invites audience to come to booth and turn each other into sheep. :D
 
Online needs to involve. Sony wants to create more community building, commerce and customisation for online play. Then talks about control - stresses (and this is a hint to Microsoft) that Sony wants to keep control with publishers. Content creaters are the boss here, and Sony will only provide services that publishers can use at leisure.

Sony then talks about how money making can become a part of online community. Uses the music industry as a bad example, where Apple finally showed the way. A structure for billing tiny transactions. Gives an example of how a novice user could buy a well-tuned car from a retired gamer in GT.
 
It's almost all screen, and looks a bit different from teh concept pictures. Very wide widescreen display it has. Very cool and flat.

Sony recognises the quick rise of portable devices. Therefore the PSP. A totally new business and experience. It is about as powerfull as the PS2. Has new options such as wireless connectivity. It can deliver hi quality video and sound, and uses a UMD (Universal Media Disc)
 
eagerly following here to.
Good to see the hdd will probalbly feature well in gt4 with downloading cars for a start!
 
marketing for the PSP is wealthy and gadget hungry men (my translation), second market is teenagers. 170mm long 70mm hi, 260 grams. Very hi-quality display, TFT 16:9 LCD screen. Memory will have 32mb, and 4mb embedded dram. Ports for headphone, mic, controllers included. Wireless 802.11b support. USB2.0 and Memstick duopro is also planned. Infrared. Battery and batterylife lithium ion battery providing about 10 hours depending on what it is used for (DVD play would be less, more like 2.5 hours). UMD will be supported by other devices as well and is a cheap but powerful medium.
 
Development based on OpenGL-like system. The PSP is setup so that developing is made very easy (as opposed to development for PS2). Connectivity is seen as key, and will be able to connect to other PSPs, PCs, and PS2s among others. Support is already very large, with 34 Japanese, 24 US and 31 European, 10 Korean and the global Sony development studios.
 
Now we get games ... a frogerr like platformer, a funny ball game, very impressive fantasy game, monkey thing, sort of a fantasy game, f1, hokey, metal gear solid!, socom like game, soccer game, metal black game, gran turismo!!!!!, tony hawk, puzzle game, spiderman, r: revolution, and many I didn't recognise!
 
EA's president now takes the stage and promises same kind of support for the PSP as for the Playstation 2. Games are already under development. Next Spring when the PSP launches (that's the first date mentioned) and will have Need For Speed undergrand, Tiger Woods, etc. Using an emulator based on SOny's specs, EA shows some footage. Shows NFL Street, NFS:U, Tiger Woods, Basketball. Very cool. He thanks Sony, for making gaming more fun every year.
 
Not just gaming producers are interested. Music labels and Video producers are also interested, and Sony wants to make this as easy and cost efficient for them as possible.

Now we see trailer of Spider Man 2 played on the PSP. Very, very, very impressive. Even over the WMV live stream it looks good enough to wathc the movie on. It really works. This thing is a decade ahead of anything Gameboy has at this point. Truly amazing.
 
SquareEnix announced yesterday that Final Fantasy Advent Children would be released, and this will also be a Video MD release. Shows crazy preview of that movie featuring among others good old Sepiroth and all those other familiar heroes from Final Fantasy 7.
 
We will also see music umd's, of which the latest Incubus release is shown as an example. Something called Sony Connect will

Release schedule
March 2005 for Eu and US, end of year for Japan.
 
Now a technical chief of Sony development talks about the "Cell" Processor.

- vast floating point capability
- massive data bandwith
- paralel processing architecture

Sony, IBM, and SCEE develop the Cell and this will power a workstation. Introduces Bob from IBM. Demand for floating point calculation is skyrocketing (in o.a. 3D design) and the "Cell" is designed to provide the power required. The "Cell" is part of a complete architecture design. This will support all layers of content creation (rendering, design, audio, etc etc.)

Among others, it will help making the digital content for making movies and games. The slides have a picture of grand canyon/subaru from GT4 Prologue on the right corner. :D

Cell Workstations and Cell Game Development systems will share technology to make the complete design easier.

A new merge of game and video is predicted for the future, in the form of Cyber Worlds. The Cell based system is partly designed to work to create this world, through combining the Cell power and flexibility and broadband evolutions. The first prototype of the Cell based Workstation is envisioned for Q4 this year.

Invites people to come over at the booth and see for themselves etc.

No details on GT4 this time, looks like they actually had more important stuff! Amazing.
 
damn i hope someone will put those press conferences up for download soon
 
GT4 for the PSP :

gt4_package_white_psp.jpg


psp_gt4_hands.jpg
 
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