Sony’s E3 presentation ended Monday with “Uncharted” treasure hunter Nathan Drake careening down a hilly city, but that’s not the end of the road for E3 attendees.
There are several invite-only events planned into late Monday night, including Microsoft’ unleashing “Halo 5: Guardians” at a cocktail party, Activision previewing the multiplayer mode for “Call of Duty: Black Ops 3” and Take-Two Interactive hosting the performance by music group Jungle.
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7 p.m. PDT
Sony says it is expanding its PlayStation Vue online TV service to Los Angeles and San Francisco on Monday, broadening availability from when it launched in March in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.
The service, starting at $50 a month, includes local TV stations affiliated with CBS, NBC, Fox and pay TV channels such as AMC, Bravo, CNN, Comedy Central, Fox News, Discovery, Nickelodeon and TBS. It doesn’t have deals with Disney, so it lacks channels such as ABC and ESPN.
Sony executives say its users, mostly aged 18 to 34, are watching more than five hours of Vue per day on average, higher than most people the same age. While the $50 price tag is higher than a similar online offering from Dish called Sling TV, which costs $20 a month, executives say it has more channels and is still less expensive than the lowest-channel packages from traditional cable and satellite operators, considering it doesn’t charge for the DVR functionality that is built in. Vue requires a PlayStation 3 or 4.
Dwayne Benefield, head of PlayStation Vue, told The Associated Press that Sony will also offer several single channels for purchase in the future, starting with Showtime at $11 per month, in July.
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6:10 p.m. PDT
After originally being teased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2009, Sony finally plans to release “The Last Guardian.”
Sony began its Monday night briefing at the annual gaming trade show with a demonstration of the game about a young boy and his giant feathered pet
Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, says he “couldn’t be happier” to show off the game.
When Yoshida announced the game’s director, Fumito Ueda, was in the audience, many attendees gave a standing ovation to the creator of such games as “Ico” and “Shadow of the Colossus.”
Gamers won’t have to wait another six years to play it. Sony says “Last Guardian” is scheduled for release in 2016.
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3:30 p.m. PDT
Jason Derulo is getting up next to E3 attendees.
The pop star is pumping up the crowd at Ubisoft’s E3 presentation Monday afternoon with a performance of his hit “Want To Want Me.”
Derulo’s tunes are featured in the latest installment of Ubisoft’s choreography franchise “Just Dance.”
“Just Dance” executive producer Jason Altman says “Just Dance 2016” will be available for all consoles, regardless of whether they have cameras. The game can employ smartphones to detect players’ voices and motions.
Altman also says the dance series will add a streaming service.
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1:50 p.m. PDT
Pele is charging into Electronic Arts’ E3 extravaganza.
The soccer legend is appearing on stage Monday afternoon at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles to discuss his legacy, while EA uses his attendance to promote the forthcoming soccer simulation “FIFA 16.”
“FIFA 16” general manager David Rutter says “FIFA” players will receive downloadable content featuring Pele and Lionel Messi following EA’s briefing.
A trailer narrated by Pele debuted after his appearance on stage. EA also showed off footage from sports simulators “NBA Live 16” and “Madden NFL 16.”
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1 p.m. PDT
Electronic Arts is launching its E3 briefing with a glimpse at the fourth installment of the sci-fi role-playing saga “Mass Effect.”
The game publisher showed a brief teaser of “Mass Effect: Andromeda” at the beginning of EA’s news conference in Los Angeles. The trailer showed an N7 officer flipping through intergalactic destinations before arriving on a desert battlefield. The clip promises that players would “discover a new galaxy.”
EA CEO Andrew Wilson says Monday’s event at the Shrine Auditorium will feature a look at three new franchises, as well as the multiplayer game “Star Wars: Battlefront” and racing series “Need for Speed.”
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10:50 a.m. PDT
Microsoft is giving a glimpse of how its HoloLens augmented reality headset can work with games at its presentation for E3, the annual game industry conference.
Executives on stage at The Galen Center in Los Angeles demonstrated how the headset was used to play “Minecraft” on a coffee table. While the audience saw Microsoft Studios executive Saxs Persson stare at an empty table, a special camera allowed them to see what he was seeing – a perfect 3-D representation of a pixelated “Minecraft” world.
He was able to zoom into the scene using his voice — saying “closer” — and could look through walls to see inside rooms and underground simply by moving his head inside the hologram. He could also navigate the world by pinching his fingers and moving the world around.
Beside him, another executive played along in the world using Microsoft’s Surface tablet.
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10:15 a.m. PDT
Microsoft made attendees part of the show during its E3 presentation in Los Angeles on Monday, illuminating the neck-band each person had to wear to gain admittance.
The devices gave the appearance of a wave of lights rotating through the Galen Center arena, nestled amid the campus of the University of Southern California.
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10 a.m. PDT
Microsoft kicked off its E3 game industry conference with new footage from its latest franchise game, “Halo 5: Guardians,” which will come out on Oct. 27 and features a multiplayer zone with up to 24 live players and maps four times the size of previous versions.
Executives also got a whoop from the hundreds of bloggers, journalists and gamers in attendance at The Galen Center when they announced the Xbox One console will have backward-compatibility with Xbox 360 games. Discs from the previous Xbox console can simply be inserted, downloaded to the hard drive and played on the newer console.
In a shot at how Sony’s PlayStation allows for playing older platform games with a subscription, Xbox executive Mike Ybarra told attendees, “We won’t charge you to play the games you already own.”
The company also unveiled a new controller called the Xbox Elite with customizable buttons.
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8:50 a.m. PDT
Doors open, and hundreds of people lined up outside are let into The Galen Center in Los Angeles for Microsoft’s Xbox briefing for E3, the video game industry’s annual conference.
Microsoft is expected to promote the latest game in its “Halo” franchise as well as give another glimpse of its augmented reality headset, HoloLens.
Bloggers, gamers and journalists, many wearing the black and green colors of Xbox, stream into the arena on the campus of the University of Southern California. Inside, music is blaring in the darkened space covered in Xbox logos while green spotlights sweep the crowd.