Like a tiger laying in the weeds, waiting its on prey, Sony took to the stage tonight at E3 with a ferocious appetite. It was like they hadn’t eaten in months. But tonight, with the spotlight shining so bright, it was their turn at the table and they weren’t going to leave as so much as a scrap for anyone else to nibble on.
Layeth the Smack Down
Sony hasn’t uttered as much as a single peep since their reveal in February. And with good reason too, with as much bad press as Microsoft has been getting, why would they bother to take away that negative focus.
The Sony conference kicked off, by my count, 17 minutes late. And like many of us, I was on Twitter, impatiently waiting for Jack Tretton. Some real gems were thrown out on Twitter too. Here are two of my favorite tweets:
“Sony, Microsoft is lying on the floor, naked, and you're wearing stilettos. All you gotta do is walk. Just walk. Don't f*ck it up” - Jim Sterling - Destructoid.com
“Sony are still rewriting PowerPoint slides to say $399...” - Marcus Beer - Gametrailers.com
I think by them being late it actually set the mood. Judging by the majority of people on Twitter, everyone was in raucous mood because they knew something big was coming up. It was like a mini-Christmas Eve where everyone was filled to the brim with anticipation.
So without further adieu lets get to the facts that were presented throughout the conference.
The PS4 will ship this Holiday season for $399, $100 cheaper than the XboxOne but it does not include the new PS Eye camera
The PS4 will put no restrictions on used games. You can rent, trade, lend or keep your games forever
The PS4 does not require an always online connection.
The PS4 does not require you to connect with their servers once within a 24hr period.
The PS4 does not lock you out from playing single player games if you’re not online.
The PS4 console looks to be smaller than the XboxOne and was shown to be displayed horizontal, where the XboxOne is vertical. (Images can be found at: http://us.playstation.com/ps4/)
Just like the XboxOne conference, Sony kicked things off by quickly going over the current offerings. The Vita came up first where they touted that the system currently has 125 Vita specific games, with another 85 in development for 2013. Some of the games coming to the Vita are:
Batman Origins
Destiny of Spirits
Killzone Mercinary
Tear Away
God of War 1 & 2 HD
Flower
Dead Nation
The Walking Dead - 400 Days
The Walking Dead (TellTale) Vita Bundle which contains:
The Walking Dead game (all 5 episodes)
400 days
Bonus material
Before Jack Tretton moved on to the PS3, he called the PS Vita “the ultimate companion device” and touted the way Skype, Netflix and Youtube look on the handheld.
Much to no one’s surprise, the PS3 segment kicked off with the critically acclaimed “The Last of Us”. Tretton said that Naughty Dog studios has now created two games with the highest review scores across the 7 years of the PS3’s life span. The other game being Uncharted 3. He also mentioned that The Last of Us has received the highest scores across any system between the span of 2012-2013. Impressive stuff and it further shows the importance of having 1st party exclusives. Both of Naughty Dog’s offerings are system sellers.
Other PS3 games that are in development are:
Rain
- Beyond Two Souls
featuring William Dafoe
Female protagonist - Jodie
Gran Turismo 6 - “The real driving simulator”
Batman Arkham Origins
release date of 10.25.13
“Exclusive experience on PS3” with Nightfall DLC and a 1960s Batman skin
Grand Theft Auto 5 Bundle releases on 9.17.13 at a cost of $299
Grand Theft Auto 5 - Pulse Headset
Sony has no plans to abandon the millions of PS3 gamers. In fact, they mentioned that they have 300 games in development over the next year with what they believe are “Hits after Hits”.
Next up was Andrew House who is the current President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. He wasted no time in showing us what the PS4 actually looks like. Like I mentioned earlier the design of the console is somewhat smaller than the XboxOne and was displayed vertically with some type of stand/base. The design fits in with the Playstation family, certainly better looking the original PS3.
House made it clear that the Sony’s core mission is to have a “relentless focus on gamers”. He also mentioned that the PS4 is in a “state of rapid evolution with the system offering unparalleled power. The PS4 is a new platform, a new Playstation with breakthrough content.” He emphasized that they are putting the focus on fans and that everyone will benefit from having all services under the various Sony Divisions.
Michael Linton, CEO of Sony Entertainment, made a brief appearance where he talked about things that were not games but focused at gamers. I think I heard him mention gamers entertainment at least 5-6 times. Like House, he championed the PS4 as a ground breaking platform that will feature next gen entertainment. Some of the offerings that will be available on the PS4 are:
Crackle
Music Unlimited
20 million songs on Day 1
Video Unlimited
Community which brought us Breaking Bad and This is the End
Unique access to content
New programming
Hardware/software all sit under one roof
Day 1 - rent/own over 150k movies
Netflix - PS3 is considered the number one device to stream Netflix.
Redbox Instant - Verizon
Live Viewer - PPV
Flixster
Games, Bloody Hell, We have Games!
In his best broken English, Shu Yoshida - President of Sony's Worldwide Studios guided us through some quick facts about their 1st party studios.
40 studios (largest amount of 1st party studios in gaming)
Studios design games based on:
How consumers play & enjoy games
How gamers use social media
Currently there are over 30 PS4 titles in development.
20 new games this year
12 of which are new IPs
Yoshida was very excited to show off a new game by Ready At Dawn Studios. The game they are developing is called The Order - 1886 and it is a PS4 exclusive. The trailer is posted below and just from the few minutes of it you can see that it might be set in the 19th century and has some steampunk stylings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdcXjOfiLsg
After this presentation, Yoshida directed us to go to Facebook or Playstation.com to see live play throughs of 4 more games:
Killzone Shadowfall* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeEKbt9SnO0
Driveclub*
Infamous: Second Son (released in Q1 of 2014) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqK35UELfpw
Knack*
*Launch Games
Before Yoshida exited the stage, he left us with one more PS4 exclusive, The Dark Sorcerer. He teased that tomorrow at 1pm PST there will be a full demo which is "amazing & funny". Below is the launch trailer which seemed to focus on the characters facial expressions and overall emotions. You be the judge if this is funny or not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hxq4VQI_E4
We were clearly in the the thick of things when Adam Boyers took the stage. Adam is the VP of 3rd party relations and boy did he have a lot of games to show off. He started his pitch by jumping right into highlighting 10 new Indie titles that are coming to the PS4. The games are:
The Witness
Transistor (Supergiant Games - makers of Bastion)
Don't Starve (Shank & Mark of the Ninja)
Mercenary Kings
OctoDad
Secret Ponchos (a Spaghetti western)
Ray's Quest
Outlast (1st person fright fest)
Oddworld New & Tasty (remake of the 1st Oddworld)
Galaxy (Side scrolling, open world sci-fi shooter)
Other games highlighted were:
Diablo 3 - PS3 & PS4
Final Fantasy XV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3xKbPooKAo
Kingdom Hearts of Memories
Final Fantasy 14 (coming to PS3 and PS4)
Assassins Creed: Black Flag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cwj1RQbOzM
Watch Dogs, of course, made another appearance at E3 as this game features one hour of exclusive content on the PS4. The producer from Ubisoft said that in Watch Dogs you can play the game as you want. While stealth seems like your best option, you can play it fast paced but prepare to quickly get out of harms way (ie the Cops). Overall this game looks very polished but also a bit repetitive. I feel like I have seen the go to cell phone to black out the city bit more than a handful of times. You be the judge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPYgXvgS6Ww
The Elder Scrolls Online
Spring 2014 release
Beta exclusive to PS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3DNrPeJog
Mad Max
World Premiere
PS4 users will have access to the Road Warriors survival kit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QAYq8ud14s
Boyers could have “dropped the mic” after his performance but instead choose to end with these nuggets of info. There are currently 140 Games in development for the PS4, of which 100 will be released within the 1st year of launch. Hear that, thats the sound of PS fanboys dropping the mic for Mr. Adam Boyers.
You would think at around the two hour mark that Sony would have felt it had done its job but clearly they saved the best news for last. They had the crowd in the palms of their hands and they did not disappoint. Let's highlight some of the awesome knowledge bombs House and Tretton left us with before they exited stage left.
The PS4 will have NO restrictions on Used Games.
You don’t need the internet to play games on the PS4. Let me clarify, a connection is not needed to play Single player games.
When you insert your game into the PS4, there is no authentication.
Ustream will be the provider that will integrate with the Share button.
Your PS Plus membership carries over and there is one price. Your PS Plus membership today will cover you for tomorrow, meaning PS4. The membership entitles you to a new title every month. They highlighted a few of the new indie titles that I mentioned above. I’d much rather get new games than the 3-4 year old games that Microsoft is announcing (Halo 3 and Assassins Creed 2).
Your friends list is a list of your True Friends, “your friends in the real world”. Does this mean they are abandoning PSN screen names and making people use their real names? I will try and seek further information on this.
Gaikai will be your “All Access Library”. This cloud gaming service will not be available at launch but starting sometime in 2014. The United States will be the first country to receive the Gaikai feature. It’s their hopes that Gaikai will give PS4 customers an immediate access to critically acclaimed games. “Fast Gaming Network” that will feature console quality games. With the cloud, PS4 and the PS Vita, Sony’s gaming experience will be more expansive than ever.
The Bell of the Ball
Destiny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBNdrJMwrkc
Before Jack Tretton signed off with the ultimate mic drop, Sony showed us, in my mind, the game of the day, Destiny. Developed by Bungie and Published by Activion, this game looks absolutely amazing from top to bottom. Two of their developers played a 12 minute live gameplay session and I literally had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Destiny will usher in the next gen consoles with a loud thunderous bang. PS4 users will experience exclusive content as Sony and Activision have an exclusive partnership with each other. This will probably work similar to the way the exclusive deal Microsoft and Activision have for the Call of Duty series.
As you can see, by these facts, that there is now a clear difference between the two major players in the console market. Pre-orders are now available for both the PS4 and XboxOne. Will you pre-order one or both? In the interest of full disclosure, I pre-ordered both. You know, just incase they want to keep me on board here I figure I might as well be prepared. At least that is how I rationalized it with my wallet.
Anyone else still in shock that there is $100 price difference between the two systems. What an epic day for gamers. We haven't seen a flurry of activity like this in seven to eight years. No matter what side you are on, remember we play games. Enjoy them and embrace them.
