Yesterday was fantastic. We saw Nintendo's press conference (which was filled with great surprises) and Sony's, which had it's share of surprises, but one game that was mysteriously absent: The Last Guardian.
We speculated yesterday that The Last Guardian and the Team Ico Collection HD were no-shows because they're being retrofitted for 3D.
We don't know if that's the case, but at least Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) is talking about the no-show.
As SOCOM: Confrontation owners like myself are quite knowledgeable of by now, and perhaps frustratingly so, the online-only PlayStation 3 tactical shooter has had problems with server overloads, game freezes and (as of now) false advertising. Thankfully, Sony and Slant Six are at work on patches to correct these issues, the first of which will rectify the server mess that has made the game border on unplayable through Confrontation's first handful of days released.
As I'm sure many of you are aware, the launch has not gone without its share of problems. Unfortunately, the server environment is not holding up during peak loads. We've made many changes and improvements to the server to improve the issues (the first few days were really rocky) but we are still seeing server issues when we get up to around 25,000 simultaneous players during peak hours. Our primary focus at this time is to resolve these server issues. We have all available resources looking into the issues and we are trying to resolve them as quickly as possible. It is not as easy as adding more servers, we have to identify and fix the bottlenecks in the system which are preventing the servers from scaling properly. The servers should continue to get progressively better as we roll out server side updates.
[...]
In parallel to the server updates, we are also working on a new client patch which resolves some client side stability issues. These issues include getting booted to the XMB, large number of players getting disconnected from a specific game and other issues. We've been working on and testing this since the game launched and we should have a final version ready for release in the next week or so. It is hard to provide an exact date or timeframe as we need to make sure the patch is thoroughly tested and does not introduce any new issues. -- SCEA Director of Development Seth Luisi's post on SOCOM.com
Luisi also said work is being done "to enable trophies and address various user feedback," though those issues won't be addressed until after the server problems are corrected.
I'm not naive enough to think that this game would have been immune to these traditional problems that plague online multiplayer games in the initial week or so of release, but at the same time, Confrontation was an online-play only title from the beginning. Server issues are one thing, but advertising clan ladders and a party matchmaking system and then not including them on the game disc is something that can't be ignored.
Hey kids, can you guess the best way to promote your products and industry as a whole?
If you said "compare it to drugs," well, you might not be right, but you're good enough to work for Sony.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "Overreaction much?" In any case, given the hill the hobby is trying to climb in the eyes of some parents in terms of legitimizing itself, referring to the PSP as a "gateway drug" to consoles as SCEA Senior Marketing Manager John Koller did seems a little questionable, at best.
"In the past, it was a small screen experience. It was something that was very difficult to have from a social perspective," he said. "Those things have changed."
It is also noted that Sony has seen a demographic shift for the PSP since its launch, going from 28-40 year-old business men in the subway on the way to work (hurray, I'm old now) to younger and multi-ethnic users who like to play together.
There has been some hype and speculation surrounding the reveal of a new trailer for God of War III today, but according to Sony Computer Entertainment America's Social Media Manager, Jeff Rubenstein, that is simply not the case. "The trailer will not be tomorrow, but there be new coverage and content."
The Examiner reports that while there will be new coverage and content shown today, it will cover what Sony had shown in December, and no new footage would be released in video form, and that includes trailers. Instead, there will be new hands-on previews, screens, and other coverage from outlets.
But as far as anything new in motion? That's out. For now, feel free to peruse the new screenshots which dwell within our gallery.
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John Doe