Sony, Microsoft set stage for gaming's next fight

Razzle-dazzle graphics
True to form, Sony took a long time at its pre-E3 press briefing to drop its PlayStation 3 bomb. First came long digressions into Sony’s history as a leader in video gaming. This was followed by PowerPoint slides on the architecture of the Cell processor, the revolutionary chip created specially for the PS3.

Thousands waited patiently. A mixture of game developers, media, women with colored hair, the ubiquitous young bald Europeans in tailored suits and hundreds of conservatively clad Japanese businessmen, the audience listened to enough technical specifications to choke an electrical engineer.

Finally, the massive 2,000 square-foot screen behind the stage came to life with graphics rendered by the Sony PlayStation 3’s Cell processors and graphics processing unit.

Slide show   Games galore Images from the E3 video game show in Los Angeles.

Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang took the stage to demonstrate the graphics processing unit his team built specifically for the PlayStation 3: the 300 million transistor RSX Reality Synthesizer.

And what did he use to demonstrate this technology? This being a video game conference, the key word is "zaftig."

What was most remarkable, beyond a middle-aged man publicly ogling a virtual women before thousands of people, was that the women was worth ogling if only for the realistic depiction of her face. Blemishes, shadows, skin irregularities were all as clear as day even from the nosebleed press sections.

More demonstrations of the PlayStation 3’s graphical power followed. A real world actor, Alfred Molina in the role of Dr. Octopus in the movie "Spider-Man 2," was given the digital treatment. Again, the facial characteristics were amazing, especially in the way the skin and eyes reflected different types of light.

A bathtub full of bobbing rubber ducks demonstrated water physics. Richard Marx, creator of the EyeToy, a camera that can be used with PlayStation games, then one-upped the demo by showing how the EyeToy could be used to manipulate the bathtub. Holding two cups in front of the EyeToy, Marx motioned as if he was scooping bath water from one cup to another. The on-screen graphics were amazing.

"It’s not just about how objects look, it’s about how they behave," explained Sony vice president Phil Harrison.

Game demos followed. Sony showed off the fighting game "Tekken," racing games "Gran Turismo" and "Formula One" and what looked to be a "Half-Life"-inspired shooter by Incognito Labs.

Lighting, textures, shadow, sparks, explosions: The type of qualities that serious gamers expect were viewable on a level never seen before. But it must be noted that many of the demonstrations were not in real-time, but were video presentations.

FREE VIDEO Battle of the consoles May 17: CNBC’s Jerry Cobb reports on Sony and Microsoft’s presentation of their new game consoles. CNBC

In all the games, a thousand little things to be happening at once. Water in a nearby bay shimmered in the background in a demo of "Unreal" while in the foreground two cyborgs battled it out, sparks flying. Several games involved massive armies. Imagine those Braveheart scenes with two armies clashing and then hundreds of mini-hand-to-hand battles taking place. That’s the level of detail shown.

PlayStation 3 is gearing for movie quality realism in its game graphics. But there’s another side to realism. Electronic Arts demonstrated the boxing game "Fight Night Round 3." A knock-out blow triggered an animation of the boxer’s face as he took the hit. The face supposedly has hundreds of muscles and the attendees saw all of them violently jerk in slow motion.

"Killzone," a first person shooter that was panned when it was released for the PlayStation 2, looks brutally real on the PlayStation 3. Too real, in fact. The urban warfare scenes make "Blackhawk Down" look like "Fraggle Rock." Still "Killzone" was nothing if not gripping. It was the one game demonstration that had everyone cheering.

It was that kind of ending to Sony’s pre-E3 press briefing that had Kaz Hirai, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, confidently telling MSNBC.com that it didn't matter that the PlayStation 3 would be shipping in the spring of 2006, several months after the Xbox 360 debut.

“Really, a half year difference is not that big of a deal," said Hirai. "We plan on continuing to lead.”

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