Patrick Seybold, director of corporate communications and social media at Sony Computer Entertainment America, gave us an explanation for the change: "The original PlayStation 3 controller that was unveiled at E3 2005 was a design mock up that we wanted to get ready for the product's first unveiling. A year later at its E3 2006 press conference, the SixAxis was formally unveiled, leaving the Boomerang as nothing more than a footnote in the PlayStation brand's history. The reason is now obvious as the thing never launched. Given how open Sony was about the inner specs of the PS3, why wasn't even a single word spoken about the controller? The Boomerang, as it was immediately dubbed, was as interesting a design as it was mysterious.
It was never given an official name or even directly talked about at any point during the show, it was just sort of there. Situated conspicuously on stage, in the press shots and snuggled against the system in the glass display cases at the show was the PlayStation 3's new controller.
But the PlayStation 3's inner hardware wasn't the only thing that changed. Of course, many of the promised specs were whittled down, such as how the gigabit Ethernet ports dropped from three to one and dual-HDMI outputs became a singular one.
Though much of the "footage" shown was conceptual pre-rendered stuff, full specs for the system were released and Ken Kutaragi even ended the conference with the system in hand. However, we weren't quite prepared for the full rundown that we got during the press conference. After all, Microsoft had already lifted the cloth off the Xbox 360, so it was Sony's turn to show its hand. Upon arriving in Los Angeles for the show mid-month, we began seeing hints that the system would be unveiled in some manner. Back at the beginning of May in 2005, everyone knew that the PlayStation 3 was in the works, but no one outside of Sony or its most trusted development studios knew what was in store for Sony's E3 2005 press conference.