Sony's Bauhaus booth: a black beauty
Sony's presence dominates the TGS show floor once again this year. In addition to leasing the most square footage (for the most fanboy frottage), Sony makes their presence felt through booth architecture that skillfully mixes art and technology.
Almost completely devoid of ornamentation, the matte-black cube seems to suck light and sound out of the air like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is nearly the same booth that defined the Sony presence at last year's show, but it's evolved a bit. Sony dropped the grey cornice seen atop last year's booth and added a thin red accent in order to make the PlayStation name more prominent. That's an improvement.
Sony's also using all four sides of the booth to showcase PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable products this year. This decision moves some of the overwhelming booth traffic to the "sidewalk" outside the structure, a helpful move given the crush of bodies inside the booth.
The booth is playful too. For example, those who'd like to play test Resistance: Fall of Man must queue up behind the booth. There's no way to enter the queue from inside the booth, but there are some clever, torn nets (shown above) that allow people inside the booth to watch as players run through the game. It feels slightly voyeuristic and naughty to do this. That's a neat emotional trick achieved through layout.
Above: Joe Average plays Eye of Judgment for the PS3. A helpful booth attendant tutors him and flirts with him. Every time he makes a move, she smiles as if it's the most brilliant strategic maneuver she's ever witnessed. She makes Joe feel smart. (Not that he isn't.)
Above: that's the camera sitting atop that little desktop lamp stand. Nifty.
Above: here's the booth shown from the rear. Those light boxes at the bottom left are game demos. Those two spotlit areas at the corner are stacks of retail PS3 boxes.
Above: This is the first view most people entering the show floor see. The PlayStation 3 booth sits at the back, aggressive logo hanging over all of the other booths on the floor.
Above: Gran Turismo HD driving chair. Looks like the same setup they've got in the Sony store in San Francisco. Ho hum.
Above, a massive, pink PSP. ~kawaii ne ^_^ !
Above: annoying signage prohibiting "photo." Good thing we took "photos" instead. We understand that companies want to make sure that the game screenshots that do make it into the public domain are pristine, high-resolution shots that showcase the best part of the games they hope to sell. But this sort of anti-press bull-malarkey is offputting to the extreme.
Above: here's the entrance to the Resistance demo. It's actually around the backside of the booth.
Above: pink products preen for the press.
Above: the MotorStorm demo area. Out of respect for the no-photography policy, we won't show you photographs of the games (there are plenty of legit screenshots elsewhere on the net). Instead, we'll tell you that the game looked fine, but was nowhere near as pretty as the fantasy CGI Sony showed at E3 2005.
Overall: Sony put together the best booth of the show. It's too bad the company can't engineer its keynotes as well as it engineers its show floor presences.
