Review, regroup, reassess. Let’s face it, our ideas were probably a little fanciful, and most likely complete nonsense – there’s not going to be a PS4 at E3 and the PS3 isn’t going to let you stream games from the future. It’s not. It was a nice idea, but we were – probably – way off.

I’ve been thinking since, though, and attempting to read between the lines and project a bit – and although I’ve not really been following what Nintendo and Microsoft are up to (I’m guessing Wii U and Call of Duty, respectively) this year, naturally I’m keen to see what Sony will pull out of the bag.

So, and feel free to disagree and throw tomatoes, here’s what I think is going to happen. I’m not going to pretend to base all this on ‘insider sources’ or anything more than a little bit of intuition and guesswork, but it’s reasoned, considered and – I reckon – probably pretty close.

New Hardware

[drop]Sony will be concentrating on PS Vita and the PS3 line-up is too strong for a new console to appear, right?

Well, sure, we won’t be seeing the PS4, but what’s to stop Sony pushing out a new, cheaper, lighter, smaller PlayStation 3? Nothing, assuming the tech is there – what format this will have escapes me though.

No Blu-ray drive? Possibly, although unlikely. No online? No chance. Built-in streaming of PS3 games over the web (and Gaikai)?

Well, possibly – we hinted at this before and it seems like an obvious route to take, but it’s been years since the slimmed down PS3 and it might kick start some sales. And remember trade mag MCV were 100% confident that there’d be new hardware this E3 (even though they changed their mind a bit) – doesn’t necessary mean a PS4, does it?

New PlayStation Plus

We’ve said this before, and although the teases haven’t exactly been numerous, a couple of Tweets from SCEE staff (and some notable retweets) strongly suggest that PlayStation Plus will play a big role over in LA shortly. To what end? I’m guessing that it’s going to be two fold.

Firstly, the surveys that appeared asking what game subscribers might like to see free with the service will likely come to fruition in some guise. Again – don’t go out and buy Plus on my say so – but I’m guessing that there’s going to be some free games on offer, or at least a few to chose from even if you’re only allowed to grab two or three.

Secondly, the Gaikai thing – let’s be realistic here, this isn’t going to suddenly kick off future compatibility even if that concept is hugely exciting. No, I’m thinking that if there is a link between Plus and Gaikai (if indeed it’s Perry’s company that all this is about) then it’s probably going to be streaming of PS3 games only.

Demos only, possibly, meaning that users can quickly try out a game without downloading tens of gigabytes – but we’ll see.

New Games

[drop2]Well, sure. Sony might have already shown off The Last Of Us, LittleBigPlanet Karting and God Of War: Ascension (among others) but there’s more to come – that much is certain. What they are we don’t know, yet, but they’re coming, and are highly likely to be rather massive.

And that’s just PS3. The Vita needs to step up and if it’s going to demonstrate any sense of potential it needs to do this at E3. Especially, Sony need to have third party support well and truly onboard.

And by that I mean confirmation of the big guns and exactly what those games will be – Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty – rather than just a logo and then silence for twelve months. And some nice big AAA first party stuff would be great too – let’s see Killzone 4, a new portable Kratos adventure and more from Evolution.

Whatever happens, at this stage at least we can be sure that Sony still have a few secrets left to reveal – they’ve done the majority of the ‘leaking’ themselves, keeping the console and its new games in the public’s eye nicely for a good few months. But there’s always a surprise and nothing we’ve heard would suggest otherwise for E3 this year.

What those surprises are – games, hardware, services – is anyone’s guess, but it’s fun to speculate and who knows, I might even be right with a couple of those, eh?