Sony’s big press conference at E3 2006 quickly became a legend. Embarrassing, confusing, fun, and rigid at the same time, the press—touting the PSP and revealing the price tag for the PlayStation 3—is easily one of the company’s most memorable, albeit unintentionally, early arrivals, viral YouTube videos memeing its silliest moments, as well as other popular ridicule. And now, thanks to the preservation work of documentary filmmaker Danny O’Dwyer, you can watch the broadcast in stunning 4K quality.
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Through his crowdfunding documentary channel Noclip, O’Dwyer has gradually mined and published video game history over the decades. From gameplay of unreleased titles until 10-year-old Hideo Kojima interview is scrapped with never-before-seen trailers, he had it all. And on July 21, he uploaded Sony’s two-hour E3 2006 presentation in the highest possible quality: 2160p at 60fps. Well, this is a time capsule worth checking out for the first time if you haven’t seen it, or rewatching it in HD if you have. Trust me, you are in for a great time. So get ready and let’s remember this silly conference.
The presentation has some fun games
There were some pretty cool games presented during the presentation. Siphon filter: Dark mirrorfifth entry in the currently inactive third-person stealth shooter series, introduced with the PS3 launch title Genji: Days of the Blade. The best God of War clones, Treasure Sword, was revealed with several cinematic games. And we got our first look at what will become Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, a game that continues to showcase one of Naughty Dog’s most iconic IPs. On the gaming side, Sony’s E3 2006 press conference catered for it.
The awkward moments are so memorable
But in between these gameplay demos and teaser trailers are some really tough moments. Then-President and CEO Kaz Hirai was trying to incite the crowd by shouting, “It’s the Riiiidge Racer!” The Genji: Days of the Blade The presenter introduces the game’s historical roots before battling a giant enemy crab with a weak spot that you can attack for massive damage. Some random guy on the street talking about how painful it is for him to beat you at a PS3 game because “I don’t know”. It’s a crazy presentation that’s both legendary and hilarious.
PlayStation 3’s price is ‘yike’
While the presentation opens with Hirai’s climax talking about the PS2’s great success, best selling console of all time, ends up being a serious idiot. After all this to brag about the previous generation and show off hot games for the next, Hirai has revealed the price of the PS3: $500 for the 20GB console and $600 for the 60GB console. The announcement came as a ton of bricks, perhaps in part because the Xbox 360, which has been on the market for months, is considerably cheaper. It was a confusing price that made me gag, but PS3 still sells slightly more units than Xbox 360 throughout its lifespan.
Save footage that might have been lost forever
In an email to Kotaku, O’Dwyer detailed the work involved in delivering this memorable press conference. Saved on two HDCAM tapes by a video game website and sent to a landfill before O’Dwyer rescued them, he said he “basically did nothing” with the footage, just ripped it off the tape and converted it to HD.
“The process is quite simple, we use professional HDCAM tape to get the signal from [Series Digital Interface (SDI)],” said O’Dwyer. “I used an adapter to convert it to HDMI and used a high end video recorder to record that. Once I have it on my PC, I export the 4k version for YouTube (to access the higher bitrates available) and the 1080p version for archiving because that’s its native resolution and we can upload the file to the archive without re-rendering.”
When asked why he thought the Sony presentation at E3 2006 became so infamous, O’Dwyer theorized that because memes were so much rarer back then, simple phrases like “Riiiidge Racer” and “giant enemy crab” were easy to live free in our heads. Regardless of the power behind it, conferences like these are some of the most interesting pieces of video game history he’s stumbled across since embarking on the preservation of the “several thousand tapes” that have been nearly lost forever.
Speaking of other favorites, O’Dwyer said, “The Nintendo’s Cosmos World Demo is something else because it’s such a beloved piece of footage that no one has a clear copy of it,” said O’Dwyer. “My personal favorite might be E3 Demo of the Knights of the Old Republic which has never been seen before. Especially when it comes to where that franchise is.[[[[Remake to be announced in September 2021 was indefinitely delay.]“I know that the fandom enjoyed dissecting that video. A few days ago I also found a cache of E3 2004 press kits filled with screenshots and videos. So every day we happen to discover exciting new things.”
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What O’Dwyer is doing is extremely important work. Consider that 87 percent of classic games are being forgotten over time, mainly because older hardware is hard to find and hard to maintain, it’s comforting to know that there are people working to preserve video game history. Because if we don’t remember where we’ve been, we’ll never know where we’re going.
