Sony has no one to blame on the PR mess--they were not misrepresented. They selected footage that represented gameplay, they refused to answer questions about realtime at E3 instead emphasizing stuff was "PS3 spec" and "game assets" and lead interviewers that "they would play" what they saw, and a week later stating it was realtime when leaks began indicating it was not realtime. They fanned the flames themselves and refused to say, "This is all CGI" and instead emphasized it will look like this on the PS3. That is how it was, and here is some proof.
From the Next Gen PR thread here at B3D: When Morgan Webb of G4TV [video] asked Phil Harrison if the KZ footage was realtime he responded that "all game engine or done to spec" and was only "scratching the surface" of the PS3. When pressed again about whether it was realtime whether "I'll be playing
that in my living room" he said "Absolutely". She asked repeated times about the realtime and his answers were, "Yes, it is to spec" "So I will play that" "Absolutely".
GameSpot asked for clarification a week later to a Sony rep and Sony said KZ was realtime.
In an IGN interview the KZ developers, after noting they barely got KZ ready for E3 2006, detailed how they were trying to do more than just the beautiful graphics. When asked "Is the Killzone sequence a fair example of what people can expect from realtime gameplay on the Playstation 3" they answered, "Yeah, it's basically a representation of the look and feel of the game we're trying to make". IGN then specifically notes that every time if they ask if it is realtime they skirt the issue and focus on "this is what you can expect" and "this is our vision" while refusing to answer the question, only to emphasize what they saw.
Sony said everything was done to the PS3 spec and were using in game assets; that the videos would represent the gameplay (less some artistic license in "replay mode"), but empahsized again everything was done to the PS3 spec.
There were a lot of other little quips and interviews as well, but the emphasis was always on the PS3 could do this and the videos, like KZ, were specifically designed to look like gameplay.
And even after people came forward as saying it was prerendered (Laa-Yosh noted this within 24 hours) there were a number of posters on this forum who fought ferociously that it was in fact realtime. Laa-Yosh took a TON of flaming. But it is now well known and established KZ was prerendered, and yet he has received very few apologies. Further, by summer 2005 a number of Xbox 360 games were being accused of being prerendered (like NBA2K6), contrary to media and developer claims, as a form of trollish backlash.
This was one of the prime reasons I left B3D for 6 months. The controlled fan trolling, flaming, misinformation, etc got in the way of quality industry discussion and technical discussions. But there is no question that Sony intended to have people believe those were PS3 games--in their interviews after talking about how great the 'games' looked they talked about how powerful Cell and RSX were and enabled them to do this etc.
And this issue will never die because there are people who honestly believe E3 2005 Motorstorm looks like E3 2006 Motorstorm, but will turn around and slam games on another platform--and vice versa. This is the worse sort of viral PR and it is absolutely effective. (Note: Sony was not the only one with CGI posing as gameplay, e.g. Ubi's Ghost Recon... E3 2005 was the coming out party for CGI pretending to be gameplay)
EDIT: Thanks Scoob, I could not find that one! Anyhow, KZ was the biggest game at E3 2005. It says a lot when it is a complete no-show in 2006 and instead is replaced with Genji and 10 minutes of GT HD. Likewise Motorstorm happened to miss the Sony press event as well but made it to the show floor.
