(Reformatted by Lloyd Evans. Thanks! :) #MOD# Joey takes the stage and he is READY. He is a streewise teenager +who introduces a video that highlights the Playstation #MOD# Olaf Olafsson takes the stage and greets the audience who are +applauding #OLAF# Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome. Before I begin, let me acknowledge the presence of a few people here tonight who have contributed to making this evening possible. Mr. Mickey Schulhof... President and CEO Of Sony Corporation Of America, And Mr. Terry Tokunaka... President, Sony Computer +Entertainment There are also a number of people from our sister companies: Sony Music, Sony Pictures, Sony Electronics -- as well as other Sony divisions.. . I welcome you all. But most importantly I welcome those of you who came here to play some games and have fun. It's taken a while but this week is a culmination of more than four years of hard work and dedication by hundreds of people within Sony's interactive businesses around the world. We got into this business in the U.S. in 1991 with a mission tohelp define the phrase, "interactive entertainment." This Saturday, September 9th, with the launch of the "Sony PlayStation," we'v e taken a decisive step toward defining "the interactive experience." By the end of this week, video gaming will be CD quality digital sound and three-dimensional graphics. The PlayStation will open up the industry to a new genre of entertainment. Now the only limit to software development will be the imagination of the creati ve community. In terms of both technology and creativity, interactive entertainment is now on the same playing field as the music business and the moion picture industry. And i believe we will soon see it cross demographic boundaries in the same way. The fact is, the core generation that buys entertainment today is for the first time made up of people who grew up playing video games and computers. Our players are not only twelve year old kids any more. And they are no longer content with passive entertainment alone. They demand interactivity as a part of their entertainment mix. When the PlayStation was launched in japan, in december of last year, it sold more than one million units in its first six months. With the PlayStation's north american launch this saturday the 9th -- as well as the european launch on september 29th -- we are looking for eual success. As you'll hear from jim whims later, many of our players even +reserved their PlayStation in advance. With the stable of tremendous talent we have on our team -- from the software we are producing internally within our interactive studios to the partnerships we have established with an illustrious group of worldwide developers -- the PlayStation experience is goin g to set a new standard in interactive entertainment that will define the indust ry for years to come. What we are celebrating here this evening represents not solely the launch of an exciting new interactive entertainment medium called, "the sony PlayStation" -- but the launch of a new business, a new industry. Now before i leave, i would like to show you one of our commercials. Pay close attention, you will notice that with the sony PlayStation, and the PlayStation advertising, there's more than meets the eye. #MOD# they now run a thirty second commercial featuring battle arena toshinden #OLAF# It is now my great pleasure to introduce a man who has been at the forefront of optical disc technology since joining Sony in 1985. He had an impressive hand in spearheading the growth and expansion of CD technology... from home audio and car stereo, to electronic information products like t he CD Rom Discman. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the President of Sony Computer Entertainment of America -- Marty Homlish. #MOD# Marty Homlish takes the stage wearing a Playstation cap #MARTY# . As Olaf just said, I've been with Sony for a long time. I was present at the audio revolution caused by the compact disc and I helped dr ive its growth. I helped convert Sony's car stereo target audience from a sea of grey suits to a tdal wave of th e hippest, hottest, toughest-to-please crowd of consumers there is -- 16 to 24 y ear old males. So when I joined the PlayStation team, I thought I'd seen it all. Then I saw PlayStation in action. And believe me -- I was not ready. I knew that the PlayStation launch in Japan had generated the sale of more than a million units in its first 6 months at retail. The single highest unit volume in the history of the videgame business. And sti ll I wasn't ready for the staggering potential this product represents. And I'm not just talking about sales potential. I'm talking about creative potential -- the creative potential inherent in a tec hnology so advanced it was orginally developed for professional workstations. When you have a digital 32-bit multi-processor that can deliver thirty frames pe r second of full motion video, CD quality digital audio and three dimensional im aging -- there is virtually no limit to the experiences you can create. And because the PlayStation is so sophisticated -- everybody has to think young, think fresh, think fast. We are now strategically positioned to respond to retail and consumer demand imm ediately. To stay on top, in touch, and even ahead of the U.S. market, PlayStatioin softwa re is being manufactured in Terre Haute, Indiana. And starting in 1996 we will be capable of manufacturing PlayStation hardware in North America as well. We also have nearly 200 publishers and developers who have partnered with us to deliver a product line-up that is incomparable: Companies like -- Acclaim, Crystal Dynamics, Electronics Arts, Konami, Namco, Time Warner Interactive, Virgin Interactive, and many more. Thanks in large part to their creativity and hard work, there will be 15 titles available at our launch and throughout the month of September that include many of the best videogame titles out there. And many of them exclusive to PlayStation: Our own Battle Arena Toshinden and ES PN Extreme Games, Wing Commander 3 and PGA Tour '96 from Electronic Arts, NBA Jam: Tournament Edition and Street Fighter: The Movie from Acclaim, and Total Eclipse and Off World Interceptor Extreme from Crystal Dynamics. As you'll get to experience for yourself in a little while, PlayStation is as vi rtually real as you can get. For the first time, kids can actually dive inside the game itself. They can rotate 360 degrees, sneak up behind an opponent, they can get behind an opponent, and become the character they've created. It's an experience that goes way beyond video games. Way beyond dexterity. This is an experience that converts imagination into reality in a way that will forever change our concept of what home entertainment can be. You want to know who's ready for PlayStation? My teenage son, Chris. He's ready. More than that. He's intuitively ready. I've watched his fingers move across the controls. It was like watching Clapton's fingers dance along the neck o a Stratocaster. Unbelievable. When I brought PlayStation home for the first time, the only title I had with me was the Japanese version of Battle Arena: Toshinden, so when we loaded it in th e instructions were all in Kanji characters. You think that bothered Chris? He whipped right through it. Screen to screen to screen. So I said, "How'd you figure that out?" He said, "I don't have to read Japanese, Dad. I just know this stuff." Absolutely intuitive. And absolutely exciting. Sony's President Nobuyuki Idei recently said that PlayStation wil create a conv ergence that leads to a new digital reality. But I think that we're already on our way. According to BusinessWeek, Americans spend nearly four hundred billion dollars a year on entertainment. We are watching young people buying compact discs in the hundreds of millions, w hile sales of multimedia CD Rom discs are skyrocketing. Teenagers like Chris are spending their money on CD game tiles. And the CD driven PlayStation experience is like a siren call to people like me who want to relive the unlimited fun and excitement of being Chris's age again. Digital technology is taking all of us deeper into our own +minds. It's taking us inside the music. Inside the game. Inside the adventure of our own imaginations so that it's becoming harder and ha rder to find the border between the entertainment and the experience. PlayStation is intuitively right for the age we are living in. It's taking us where we were always meant to be -- inside the entertainment. Inside looking out and not the other way around. #MOD# Play another commercial, Joey crashes on #JOEY# Hey... Hold it. #MARTY# What are you doing? #JOEY# I'm going to re-wind it to catch the secret message. #MARTY# How do you know there's a secret message? #JOEY# All these commercials have secret messages. See? See, the deal is you tape the commercial. Freeze frame advance and you get a game code. Everybody tapes the commercials. #MARTY# Like I said, totally intuitive. #JIM# Hi. I've got the best job of all tonight. I'm the one who gets to bring you the very latest good news from Sony Computer E ntertainment. But first, and on behalf of all of us at SCEA, I want to tell you how excited we are that you're with us tonight. You represent the ladies and gentlemen of the jury... the people who buy and use video game products... the people who can make us really hppy by giving PlaySt ation products a big thumbs up. This evening our game plan is to present you with enough overwhelming evidence t hat the thumbs go up on both hands. Also, a big welcome to any competitors present tonight. Without you this whole business wouldn't be nearly so much fun! As you all know by now, Sony's PlayStation goes on sale this Saturday at more th an 15,000 retail storefronts across North America. In the history of the videogame business, there has never been a launch with thi s much retail support before. Every single major retailer is on board. It has taken us 14 very fast, exciting months since the establishment of SCEA to get to this point. I can truthfully say that the ride has been a real adventure, and an experience none of us would have wanted to miss. We walked into this arena with a stated goal. PlayStation would become the leader among next generation video game platforms. We have good reason to believe we're on our way. We haven't exactly kept PlayStation a secret, have we? We did that on purpose. It's a real pleasure to mention that all the marketing plans we talked about at E3 have now all come to fruition for the launch of PlayStation. Just for example: A multi-million dollar advertising campaign is already +effectively surrounding o ur target audience with the PlayStation message. As you've noticed, our advertising message is "You're Not Ready" for PlayStation . But our data says that consumers have accepted our challenge and that they're de #JIM# finitely ready for this Saturday. All summer long, we've held a grassroots marketing campaign for the PlayStation at the very places the PlayStation target audience hangs out. Hundreds of rave parties, festivals, club nights, and other events provided them with an opportunity to experience the PlayStation for themselves. Reports from this group inform us that the PlayStation is "trick stuff". And that's good news. In addition, we've provided numerous other trial opportunities for the PlayStati on. We're currently participating in mall tours and other retail promotions during t his critical back to school period. For instance, right now, consumers can try out the PlayStation and its games on interactive displays in more than 3,600 stores nationwide. Just a couple of weeks ago we took our marketing campaign to the internet, offer ing a PlayStation Web Site that's almost as exciting as the PlayStation itself. In its first official weekend up, the PlayStation Site received over 300,000 hit s. Just two weeks later, more than 1 million hits had been logged. I think you could call that rather significant interest! And finally, tomorrow night PlayStation will be a major sponsor of MTV's Video M usic Awards taking place right here in New York City. We'll also be a sponsor of the MTV post awards party where we hope to teach Toad the Wet Sprocket a little something about the videogame industry's version of "rock and roll." If you walked into a video game store tonight you'd find our banners, posters, w indow decals, counter cards, and shelf talkers, all over the place. All are promoting PlayStation and the launch date. Yes we definitely got the word out. And the kicker is that consumers will also find a barrage +of game titles to choo se from. Having software titles available from the get-go has been a problem with almost every new hardware launch in the industry. Not so with PlayStation. We not only developed fabulous hardware, we have the games +too.[K Remember, PlayStation is priced at just $299, and in late +September we'll add an additional package priced at just $349. It will come packed-in with Namco's famous Ridge Racer in +addition to an exclusi ve PlayStation Developer's Disk. We thought you'd like to know that, but that's not the big +announcement. This is: In anticipation of strong product acceptance, we offered customers an opportunit y to prepay and reserve a PlayStation in advance of the September 9 launch. This program assures them of getting a PlayStation this Saturday. I'm thrilled to announce to you tonight for the first time anywhere, that Sony Computer Entertainment has pre-sold over 100,000 units. This means that we'll sell more PlayStations on Day One, than Saturn has sold si nce it went on sale here in May. In a nutshell... "We Are Ready. #MOD# Applause #JIM# Thanks. We think it's big news too. As our young fans would say, it's "cool, killer and most deinitely "rad!!" How's the evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Are you ready to cast your vote? Hope to see you on Saturday with both thumbs up. #MOD# Another video pops up showing the PlayStation and selected games Kids stream onto the stage on roller skates, skate boards screaming and yelling with excitement Asl the kids run around the stage and circle the audience huge PlayStation banners on either side that are running from ceiling to floor begin to rise revealing PlayStation units with dozens of kids playing the games. Teh kids start screaming "are you ready? the audience responds yes and the audience goes over to the PlayStation and starts playing various games on display please hold on as we get teh answers to your questions. We'll be back in five minutes Please chat am ongst yourselves. Then the server crashed...... Watch the official PlayStation page. They said they would post the IRC transcript and answers to questions within a short period of time. (The crash happened before the QA session, but people had submitted their questions.)