latest news from San Jose’s Games Developers Conference, where Sony grand fromage Phil Harrison has just given a keynote speech with the intriguing title of “PlayStation 3: Beyond the Box.”

In fact, Harrison started off by talking about current technologies – the PS2 and PSP. He confirmed that beloved PS2 hack ‘em up God of War would be getting a sequel, and also that the PSP would be getting games via digital download in October.

Then he got to the meaty stuff: the PS3. After playing a stunning new demo of a underwater scene rendered on the console – shoals of fish, refracting sun rays, the whole shebang – Harrison stated that hardware production will be ramped up to meet the demands of November’s global launch, and that there’ll be full 1080p video resolutions available in all regions (you just need a telly or projector able to display the insanely high format…).

He moved on to Blu-ray Disc, stating that its massive capacity will allow games publishers to make a single game disc for the entire globe, instead of the localised versions they release now. Which saves money and that.

Then the crowd was shown a real PS3 game – not the pre-rendered stuff shown off by Sony last year, an actual game running in real time on actual PS3 hardware. It’s an air combat game called WarHawk, and was actually one of the games shown at E3. It features hundreds of ships and missiles flying through the sky and, according to its developer, will be playable at this year’s E3.

Harrison then moved on to talk about the online side of the PS3, starting with digital distribution. He mentioned that titles could be downloaded direct to its 60GB hard disk and played straight off it, without the need for a game disc. The PS3’s online network will also users to chat and send emails from within games – and you can get more info from the website they’ve already set up here.

Other games were also demoed, again in real time, including MotorStorm (the muddy motorcycle game shown at E3), Resistance: Fall of Man (an alien-infested shooter) and lastly, Singstar PS3, a next gen version of the popular PS2 karaoke game. Singstar will feature downloadable tracks, and you’ll be able to store your efforts on the hard disk before distributing them to the online community. Well, if it floats your boat…

So no news on the pricing then – but plenty of diverting tidbits.

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