Sony Premiering Uncharted 2 in Movie Theaters
Sony will be giving gamers a silver screen sneak peek at Uncharted 2 next week, hooking up PS3s in four movie theaters across the United States equipped with its own digital projection technology.
Next week, four theaters in San Francisco and Thousand Oaks, California, Rosemont, Illinois and Bellevue, Washington, will be given the Nathan Drake treatment on October 5th and 6th, as Sony will be hooking PS3s up to their "4K digital cinema technology" for a preview of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, reports Reuters [http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE58T0NL20090930?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews].
The goal here, it appears, is twofold - not only is Sony building hype for the impending release of its holiday killer app, but the company seems to be hoping that this experiment might pave the way for others in the future - remember, as much as we focus on Sony's gaming division, it is a very large company with tendrils all around the entertainment space. Hell, it seems to be as much of a display of the vaunted capabilities 4K digital projectors as it is of Uncharted 2.
"This is the first time we're doing it in a theater. We think it's a start of something for us, and hope we can build this into a standard element in the movie-going experience," said Mike Fidler, Senior VP in charge of Sony's digital camera division. "Our goal in converting theaters to digital is to go beyond the traditional movie-going experience and focus on helping exhibitors find ways to fill seats."
"Gaming will be an important part of that equation," he continued.
I'm not exactly clear on how Sony believes that games will get people back into the theaters, to be honest. Yes, it's true that games have been encroaching more and more on the film industry in recent years, and as Sony has as much of a vested interest in ensuring that movies and theaters continue to thrive as it does in promoting the PS3, it makes sense that the media giant would want to hedge its bets. But will letting gamers play on massive movie screens actually do anything? Only one player can be playing at once, after all (unless you're doing split-screen multiplayer, which could admittedly be pretty awesome).
Still, whatever Sony's aim is here, it's not hard to see why they picked Uncharted 2. The game is gorgeous, with obvious pretensions toward delivering a Hollywood blockbuster-pulp-fiction experience, and currently has an absurdly high 97% on Metacritic [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/uncharted2amongthieves] (even if you don't put much stock in Metacritic, that's still ridiculous). So if there's any game suited for the silver-screen treatment, this is probably a good pick.
Speaking of Uncharted 2, anyone else been playing the multiplayer demo [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95072-Uncharted-2-Multiplayer-Demo-For-All]? I'm not going to lie, it's been pretty awesome so far.
(Via Edge [http://www.edge-online.com/news/sony-gaming-can-help-fill-movie-theatres])
Permalink
Sony will be giving gamers a silver screen sneak peek at Uncharted 2 next week, hooking up PS3s in four movie theaters across the United States equipped with its own digital projection technology.
Next week, four theaters in San Francisco and Thousand Oaks, California, Rosemont, Illinois and Bellevue, Washington, will be given the Nathan Drake treatment on October 5th and 6th, as Sony will be hooking PS3s up to their "4K digital cinema technology" for a preview of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, reports Reuters [http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE58T0NL20090930?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews].
The goal here, it appears, is twofold - not only is Sony building hype for the impending release of its holiday killer app, but the company seems to be hoping that this experiment might pave the way for others in the future - remember, as much as we focus on Sony's gaming division, it is a very large company with tendrils all around the entertainment space. Hell, it seems to be as much of a display of the vaunted capabilities 4K digital projectors as it is of Uncharted 2.
"This is the first time we're doing it in a theater. We think it's a start of something for us, and hope we can build this into a standard element in the movie-going experience," said Mike Fidler, Senior VP in charge of Sony's digital camera division. "Our goal in converting theaters to digital is to go beyond the traditional movie-going experience and focus on helping exhibitors find ways to fill seats."
"Gaming will be an important part of that equation," he continued.
I'm not exactly clear on how Sony believes that games will get people back into the theaters, to be honest. Yes, it's true that games have been encroaching more and more on the film industry in recent years, and as Sony has as much of a vested interest in ensuring that movies and theaters continue to thrive as it does in promoting the PS3, it makes sense that the media giant would want to hedge its bets. But will letting gamers play on massive movie screens actually do anything? Only one player can be playing at once, after all (unless you're doing split-screen multiplayer, which could admittedly be pretty awesome).
Still, whatever Sony's aim is here, it's not hard to see why they picked Uncharted 2. The game is gorgeous, with obvious pretensions toward delivering a Hollywood blockbuster-pulp-fiction experience, and currently has an absurdly high 97% on Metacritic [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/uncharted2amongthieves] (even if you don't put much stock in Metacritic, that's still ridiculous). So if there's any game suited for the silver-screen treatment, this is probably a good pick.
Speaking of Uncharted 2, anyone else been playing the multiplayer demo [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95072-Uncharted-2-Multiplayer-Demo-For-All]? I'm not going to lie, it's been pretty awesome so far.
(Via Edge [http://www.edge-online.com/news/sony-gaming-can-help-fill-movie-theatres])
Permalink
