Is there an inverse relationship between installed base and the length of E3 press conferences? Nintendo (#1) was definitely shortest, and I think Sony (#3 if you just count ‘next-gen’ consoles) was even longer than Microsoft’s. This wasn’t because Sony had the most news to reveal; it was because Sony showed longer demos and went into more detail on each game. To see for yourself you can watch the replay here.

So what did Sony reveal? Well, as usual, that if you look at the data the right way, Sony is number one. They’re coming out with the PSP Go (Tretton poked some fun at how that story was leaked), the PS2 is still selling, the PS3 is the most powerful game system out there, and they’ll have 35 PS-exclusive titles including Rockstar’s Agent, God of War 3, Final Fantasy XIV (which was shown for the first time), and Gran Turismo 5, and they’ll launch their own motion controller in 2010. And with 364 games projected for PlayStation platforms this year they’ll have nearly a new PS game for each day of the year.

Kratos is back for more blood

Sony is expanding in Latin America, where their brand is strong. Interestingly, it seems the Sony brand is strong in Romance language countries, while Microsoft is correspondingly weaker outside Anglo countries. Anyway, maybe that will help Sony with the ten-year plan they’re always talking about for the PlayStation 3 (they took pains to point out that the PS2 outsold current-gen consoles in April despite the fact that it’s in its ninth year).

I wish the PSP Go was priced at $199 rather than $249 but with Sony dedicated to reaching profitability I can understand their reasoning. But paying the same price as a Wii for a refresh of a portable that’s been out for over four years seems steep even if it has new features. I won’t go into PSP Go details covered elsewhere other than saying the other PSP SKUs will still remain in the channel; Go is a new option but doesn’t replace the PSP 3000. There are 50MM PSPs out there and 15MM sold through last year according to Sony. Also, the PSP games shown by Sony this year looked promising, including Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker (sequel to MGS 3), Little Big Planet, and a Gran Turismo with no less than 35 tracks and 800 cars you can trade and share with your friends via ad hoc connection.

Moving to the PS3 titles shown, Assassin’s Creed II, set in the Italian Renassaince and featuring a Leonardo-like glider you can fly over the city looked like awesome fun. Drake’s Uncharted 2 also looked great; even better than the original and the battle sequence demoed was fast-paced and chaotic with great visuals. The crowd liked MAG and its 256 players but it didn’t move me, probably because I’m not in its intended audience. Gran Turismo 5 was as expected, the Final Fantasy XIII video shown got me more excited about the title than what Microsoft showed yesterday (figures that the Square Enix guys would be tighter with Sony).

Mod Motion Racers, a kart racing game with a great track editor, had me yawning at the initial announcement but when I saw the editor I perked up immediately–I’m not a huge fan of, um fan-generated content but this tech looked like the easiest way yet to create high fidelity tracks and environments. Could be an upstart to watch.

Finally, God of War 3 looked as fun as expected and the graphics looked better than the trailer a few months ago that had people underwhelmed. That game will move some PS3s. (Disclosure: I did some work for the Sony marketing team so feel free to doubt my motives even though I’m just calling it like I see it.)

Near the end of the presentation Sony finally got around to showing what I was most looking forward to: their new motion controller. Unlike the Microsoft motion camera, Sony is using a physical controller with a glowing sphere that’s tracked by the PS Eye, so you’re still holding a controller–sounds a little like the Wii, no? The sphere can change colors to reflect different states in the game, and the tracking accuracy is less than a millimeter according to the Sony engineers. Lag time was virtually nonexistant and the tracking looking one-to-one accurate in the tech demos they demonstrated.

The Sony motion controller in action

Aside from the accuracy, it was interesting that Sony was using live video in conjunction with 3D objects to show the player’s movement–obviously can’t track the player’s body like a motion camera can, so this is a good idea. For instance, the demoer was shown on the screen holding the controller, which turned into a tennis racquet, a baseball bat, a sword, etc. The demoer had trouble hitting a tennis ball but it was easy to see how this could work in sports games, in magic games as a wand, or as a sword in a fighting game. It was also shown as a mouse substitute for RTS games, and as a very capable drawing and painting tool (much better than Microsoft’s painting demo; not sure why MS tried that as motion cameras are not a good interface for painting and drawing).

Next, they showed the use of two controllers to control a sword and shield, a bow and arrow (hmm, just like in the Nintendo demo), and as two tools. The sword and shield combat looked hella fun–would be interesting to try to cobble together a tech demo using a DDR floor mat and two controllers to allow the player to move through an RPG game while using both hands for fighting and spellcasting. Sony, please get on that.

We’ll post an anlysis of the motion gaming options for all three consoles in the next day or two after we have some time to think over the possibilities. But Sony showed more than expected for motion gaming, and that’s exciting for those of us interested in the motion gaming category.