E3 2011 starts next week and that means all kinds of announcements, new games, new products, and possibly even some crushed hopes. We’ve put together a few guides for what to expect from the Big 3 console-makers, and even opened up a contest for you to enter to win some prizes.  Up next, we’ll take a look at what Sony will be showcasing, as well as what they will probably be showing off…fingers crossed.

For Sony it’s about PSN’s return, Playstation 3 exclusives, the NGP, and the Playstation Suite.

PlayStation 3

PSN

It is the general consensus of SideQuesting, and many other outlets that Sony will bring up the PSN security issue. How much time they will spend is up for debate. Will they mention it in passing, give another big apology, or use it as a positive, as if to say “We are much improved from this happening”?

I think they will go with the Fox News spin job and try to turn the negative into a positive. It is really the only good option. If they don’t talk about it people may perceive them to be acting magnanimous and they already gave what I believe to be their only big apology soon after the network went down.

Hardware

When it comes to the home console, Sony will be keeping what they are working on to themselves (I mean, they have to be working on something, right?) , and announce nothing more than an enticing Move bundle with a large hard drive slimline PS3 model or a straight up price cut to the PlayStation 3 console.

The Xbox 360 has consistently outsold the PlayStation 3 since last E3 (when the 360 ‘S’ was announced) and Sony needs to gain some good will because of the aforementioned PSN debacle. A $50 price cut will bounce more systems off of shelves than anyone will be expecting at this point. Unfortunately, as you have already read, we are expecting Microsoft to drop the price on the 360, as well. Stick tuned!

Games

Sony has a bevvy of games hitting before next E3 that are known quantities: Resistance 3, Uncharted 3 and The Last Guardian, for example. Sony will be parading these games, especially Uncharted 3 as they need all the support they can get. The unknown games are what interest us this year. What will Sony be announcing?

Is this the year? Will Square-Enix finally announce the HDified Final Fantasy VII? Ever since the middle of the PlayStation 2 life cycle, the FF7 remake has been screamed for by fans. The game would be a guaranteed hit and would give the fans some lip service. A total win-win. Also, could another God of War game for the PS3? We think Sony has been kicking around that same thought since they got the sales figures in on GoW3, and realize that they really do like making money.

Move

My big prediction of the show: Jack Tretton comes out and shows us a giant, boring-ass graph about how profitable the Move is and how they plan on shoving it down every developers’ throat. To date, the best use of the Move controller is Sports Champions. If you want to hold up your arms all awkward like for hours on end, you could pop in a first-party shooter, but we don’t recommend this.

Sony needs a killer app for Move before people start seeing it as the Wii remade. I genuinely don’t know what kind of game will work with that controller, but that isn’t my job to figure out. Sony won’t abandon the Move, but I feel it will have a much smaller presence in the press conference than Microsoft will show Kinect.

 

NGP

Hardware

The NGP will be a major part of the Sony press conference. It has to be as there is a lot of information that has yet to go public: The final specs, 3G, Wi-fi and more importantly, the name, price and expected release date.

Many have guessed, I mean “analyzed” the situation and have come up with what they expect to be the answer for all three of these. Name: PlayStation Vita. Price: $300-$500. Release: Winter 2011. Guess what, we can make predictions and guess until we are blue in the face but it doesn’t mean anything until it is confirmed by papa Sony.

Next up, is the NGP going to have 802.11 N or 802.11 G? We think ‘N’, because, well, it is 2011. Along with connectivity, Sony still has yet to reveal the cost of the 3G model, and which carriers the NGP will be available through. 3G may not be important enough to take time out of a press conference, so this may just come in a press release.

Finally, Sony will touch on the synergy between the NGP and the PS3. The PSP flopped in this area, so I think Sony will try to build up the possibilities with their newest handheld. How deep Sony may try to push this is up in the air, but expect it to be touched upon more than once.

Games

There are two known games that will likely be shown off at E3 for the NGP: Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Little Deviants. Uncharted because the core market loves seeing more Uncharted, and Little Deviants because it uses the NGP hardware in an obvious, and cool way. Promoting the game is important, but showing off that there is actual uses for the technology is beyond that.

Several games will probably be revealed. Whether it be just a logo or gameplay footage, we can’t speculate on that. We expect Ignition to have a game there and possibly another God of War portable game. Both of the PSP God of War games were extremely successful on a system where not much was successful. Sony will probably try to keep that rolling on the NGP.

PlayStation Suite

PSOne games on the Xperia Play have been a failure so far. Possibly because no one wants the games, but more than likely it is because there are so few games and none of them are particularly interesting. Expect a few mentions of future PlayStation titles titles heading to the Xperia Play.

Sony has two tablets on the way. We don’t know much about them besides they run PlayStation Suite on Android 3.0, and that they are coming this fall. Sony will have to touch upon them both, perhaps talking about exclusives for the tablets. Once again, these devices should be a decent part of the press conference.

Editorial Opinion

Truthfully, I don’t know how long the actual Sony press conference is, but it is going to have to be at least 13 hours to cover everything that I feel they need to cover. I really like the looks of all of the new hardware Sony has coming out, but I can’t afford two or three $500 devices. The cost has to be kept down on the NGP, at least. I don’t think Sony will announce a price that will be below the total manufacturing cost, but they need to sell it at a loss to get it into as many hands as possible. Once again, though, I don’t feel Sony can afford to lose money on another device. Uncharted 3 is likely to be fighting with Bioshock: Infinite for my game of the show as it has already looked excellent in trailers and gameplay videos. Beyond that, I am interested in what new exclusives Sony has in store for us.

Sony will be streaming the press conference live, so check for it on June 5th at 5PM PST.
What are you hoping for from Sony at this E3?