After Mark Cerny was finished describing all of the Playstation 4’s internal working last night he was able to show off an exclusive game he has been working on exclusively for the PS4. The game has a very Pixar animation look and focuses on a creation known as Knack, who was created to help humans in their fight against the invading goblins.
The look and small bit of gameplay have a very Ratchet or Jak to it and it looks like it could be a lot of quirky fun.
Sucker Punch had been oddly quiet over the past year and everyone was guessing they were hard at work on a Playstation 4 title and that was confirmed last night when they unveiled the next game in their Infamous series, Infamous: Second Son. The story will follow a new protagonist as humans are discovering they have powers and are being hunted down.
Here is the synopsis for the game and the trailer below.
“Surrounded by a society that fears them, superhumans are ruthlessly hunted down and caged by the Department of Unified Protection. When Delsin Rowe discovers his powers he’s forced to run, searching for other superhumans in order to save those he loves from the oppressive D.U.P. now hot on his tail. The choices he makes along the way change the future of everyone around him.”
As with the PS3 announcement Guerrilla Games was there in full force with a new Killzone game, the difference being this time I think everyone believed that this footage was real in-game stuff. The look of the game started out much brighter than other Killzone’s and that was a great way to show off what the PS4 is capable of doing. You begin to wonder is a new console can still wow you considering how good games look and then you watch the demo shown last night and realize that they still can.
After a beautiful flyover of a much brighter scene than we are used to seeing in Killzone games, an explosion goes off and cloaked Helghast soldiers begin their attack. The gunplay run smooth like Killzone 2 and 3. The demo ends with our hero hopping a ride on a hanging rope from a dropship that shows off just what Sony’s behemoth can show off. I like it…..a lot. I want it….now.
Check out the demo below.
http://youtu.be/fL2kXenfz1Q
Damn.
While we may not have seen the Playstation 4 in the flesh (or plastic) last night, one thing that we did get a good look at was the redesigned Dualshock 4 controller. It is really beautiful and looks much more refined than the leaked pictures of the dev unit version from last week. It has an integrated touch pad on the front of the controller, much like the back pad of the Vita. The start and select buttons are a thing of the past with the options and share buttons replacing them. The new share button is a major change in that the last ten minutes of any game you are playing will always be saved into the Playstation 4’s memory and at any time you can hit the share button and pick out any part of that saved gameplay and upload it instantly to Facebook or UStream.
The shape of the Dualshock 4 has been altered also. It is thicker and is more contoured which makes it more in line with an Xbox 360 controller (for me, that’s a great thing). The D-pad has been tweaked as well and you can see the analogs have been given an indentation around them for better grip. There is an LED light at the top of the controller which will identify different players I am assuming by different colors. It is noticeably more pretty than the standard red lights on the old Dualshocks.
The Dualshock 4 will be more hefty than its predecessor going from 6.77 ounces to 7.4 ounces which,again, I love because I have always enjoyed the weight of an Xbox 360 controller over the feather light feel of a Dualshock.
All in all I have to say that Sony knocked it out of the park with the Dualshock 4. Its more curved, contoured approach and sleek styling with the touchpad and LED light makes this a gorgeous looking controller.
For those of you that followed us during our live tweet of Sony’s Playstation 4 announcement we thank you greatly and now that the system is officially real we can begin getting into the guts of the matter.
Sony went into greater detail about the interior workings of the Playstation 4, more than I thought they would and under the hood it is a very, very impressive piece of hardware. So much so that I may have to change my price prediction and match up with the $429 and $529, two-sku rumors flying about.
What Sony announced is swimming around their new monster console:
-AMD 8-core 64-bit X86 Jaguar (not Atari) CPU
-Radeon GPU with 1.84 TFLOPS of processing for graphics, etc.
-6X Blu-Ray drive and 8X DVD drive
-8GB unified GDDR5 RAM
-802.11 Wi-Fi
-USB 3.0
-Bluetooth 4.1
-HDMI, optical out and analog AV
Sony was very forthcoming in saying that they wanted this console to be developer friendly. It is widely known that a lot of developers had problems working with the Cell processor in the PS3 so Sony has done them a great service by making the Playstation 4 more PC-like.
We are only mere hours away from Sony’s Playstation event which, most likely, will reveal the Playstation 4. So I figured we would play a little game of “take a stab at rumors and see if Sony can screw it up”. We will go through some quick points and check back after the event to see how close we were to being in Sony’s head.
Be sure and leave your guesses in the comments below. We want to hear just how in tune with Sony you are.
Alright it is time to check and see how my guesses panned out from last night’s event.
1. Will be called the Playstation 4
Yes. Good Start.
2. Will only come in one version
No answer given. Closer to E3 maybe?
3. 1TB hard drive (I am tempted to say 750GB)
No answer given. Guess I was too specific.
4. Will retail for $399.99
Again, no answer.
5. Will still be able to use the PS Move (I don’t know why)
Yes. Media Molecule showed off a sculpting demo.
6. Will stream games and may offer a game rental service.
Yes. Well Gaikai did say streaming games, but not definite on the rental. I’ll take it.
7. At least two of these games will be shown and/or announced as launch titles: Killzone 4, Uncharted 4, Infamous and Planetside 2
Yes. Now we’re doing good. Killzone: Shadow Fall and Infamous: Second Son were shown.
8. Will launch on October 25, 2013.
No answer. This will most likely be at E3.
Be sure and keep up with all the news here and on our Facebook and Twitter.
All in all I am calling this a win for the good guys. 4 out of 8 right and the four not right are pushes for a later date. Bingo!!
With the Sony Playstation event coming up on Wednesday where the Playstation 4 is expected to be unveiled the rumor bin is in full overdrive. The newest one comes from The Wall Street Journal that reports that Sony will offer streaming games over their new system.
‘The new technology, to be unveiled Wednesday along with the new console, will allow users to play games delivered over the Internet, these people said. The streaming service, they added, is designed to use current PlayStation 3 titles on the new console; the new device is also expected to play new games stored on optical discs.”
This rumor should probably be filed under the section “completely likely to happen”. Sony spent $380 million dollars last year purchasing the streaming service Gaikai and I am pretty sure it wasn’t just to have no use of it.
With only six days to go until Sony’s big press even that many people (by that I mean 100%) believe will be the official unveiling of the Playstation 4, it seems that Destructoid has found the first look at what the PS4 controller may look like.
There have been many reports that Sony was abandoning the dualshock design and including a small touch screen that will serve as the start and select buttons as well as have a share button that will let users be able to post info and videos from games they are playing directly to social media sites. Now assuming this is a prototype and not the final product what we can take away from this photo is that the reports appear to be mostly true. It may not be a complete redesign of the dualshock but it certainly has a different look and honestly looks thick as hell (again, prototype).
We only have six more days of waiting before (hopefully) we get to find out the truth. And on the bright side, at least it is not as asinine as the PS3 boomerang debacle.
Sony attempted to break the internet last night when they simultaneously announced on their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages that “the future of Playstation” would be announced at a news conference on February 20th. This instantly has everyone believing that this is where Sony will officially unveil the Playstation 4.
But wait, I hear you exclaiming. Didn’t Kaz Hirai just say that Sony would let their competitors go first in announcing a new console? Why yes, yes he did.
Who knows what is going on? Maybe Sony had a change in plans. Maybe this was their plan all along to give Microsoft a bit of a mindfu**. Either way all signs point to February 20th being a very huge day in the gaming world.
That is, of course, unless Sony just trolled all of us and plan to reveal the new super, super, Keira Knightley slim PS3.
This year in gaming is setting itself up to be one of the most exciting in recent memory. There has been nothing set in stone, but it is almost assured that both Sony and Microsoft will be announcing their new consoles this year. With Nintendo jumping out of the gate last November with the [amazon_link id=”B009AGXH64″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Wii U[/amazon_link] we have officially entered the next generation of gaming (whether you believe the Wii U counts as a true leap or not). For the first time since 2006 we get to salivate over the possibilities of what new consoles will bring. Many may think how much farther can games go (a valid argument when you look at games like The Last of Us), but there is always the possibility of better that keeps us looking forward.
This has been the longest console generation yet. Come this November we will be eight years into the life of the Xbox 360 and seven years for the Playstation 3 and Wii. The difference between this lengthy console generation and others, that have lasted around five or six years, is the undeniable quality of the games coming out for the current gen systems. With so many years of development knowledge under company belts, we are being rewarded with massive, beautiful games like [amazon_link id=”B004HYK956″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Skyrim[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B0050SXX88″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Far Cry 3[/amazon_link]. Even this year, gamers have a litany of triple-A titles coming. [amazon_link id=”B004FS8LYK” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Tomb Raider[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”B003O6EB70″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Bioshock Infinite[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B0050SXKU4″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Grand Theft Auto 5[/amazon_link] would be a massive year in the video game world, but these games are coming out a mere few months apart.
So why the need for new consoles? I am not business savvy, in fact I can barely add, but I am pretty sure it is not just Microsoft and Sony that are wanting to usher in a new era of consoles. Remember that the two corporate giants only began making money off of their respective consoles in the past few years. It is almost assured that they will have to sell the next Xbox and Playstation at a loss just to get an install base. I would not be surprised if they are feeling a little bit of heat from publishers who have seen this generation stay alive way past what was expected and would like to have new consoles to develop and release games for. Don’t get me wrong, I know creating a console literally takes years of planning and producing, but I think Sony and Microsoft would have been just fine letting this generation go on unimpeded for another year or two before announcing any new system.
So what is ahead for Xbox and Playstation? I figured we would take a look at my best guesses to what I think will happen by the end of this year. Sure it is all speculation, but that is what is so great about new consoles coming out. By the time this year’s E3 happens in June we should have a good idea about the names and release dates of the systems with the yearly game show being used to showcase the games that will be coming.
Microsoft is the one that has to be the most careful in this next year of console launches. They will not have a full year head start like they did with the Xbox 360 and they can not afford for their new system to have the numerous problems the 360 had during its launch. I worked at EB Games during the release of the Xbox 360 and can tell you that it was no walk in the park trying to explain to multiple customers (many who I knew on a first name basis) that their brand new console that was only a month or two old had died completely and we had no idea when we would have any replacements in to honor their warranty due to the shortage on systems. The now infamous “red ring of death” may be in Microsoft’s rear view but it will still be on the mind of many gamers when it comes time to decide which system to drop a chunk of change on. To have anything closely resembling this incident again may leave Microsoft and their next gen hopes D.O.A.
System Name
When it comes to the name of the system I subscribe to the theory that it won’t be simply called “Xbox”. I understand the theory as to why a lot of people think this since Microsoft has been branding everything from their music service to tablets with the Xbox name but I still believe that there will be something added to it. They could simply call it The Next Xbox or Xbox Next. We also can’t forget about the fact that Microsoft bought up a whole lot of domain names like Xbox8.com. Many people have speculated that it could mean that the system could be called Xbox Infinity which is the 8 turned sideways. I can easily see this happening also. Either way I believe that the future Xbox will have a new moniker.
Release Date and Price Point
Guessing the next Xbox’s release date should be a matter of history. The original Xbox released on November 15, 2001 and the 360 on November 22, 2005. Microsoft likes launching in November and they should stay the course with this system also. My two main dates that I could see them launching on are November 5, 2013 and November 12, 2013. The second would be an easy selling point because of the easy to remember date, 11/12/13. The advertising almost makes itself. But one huge monkey wrench in this plan is a little three word game called Call of Duty. The second week of November is normally the release of the new Call of Duty so it would be up to Microsoft to decide whether they should release a new system the same week as a new Call of Duty, even if the game is on both the 360 and the new Xbox. They may want to move up to November 5th just to have the spotlight all to themselves.
I believe Microsoft and Sony know what is the absolute most a consumer will spend on a new console. Microsoft hit the right spot with the Xbox 360 with the two sku model for $299 and $399 respectively. There should be two sku models again with reports being that one will be more of a set top box that runs Windows 8 and apps with DVR access and another being the tried and true next generation console that gamers will buy. If Microsoft takes this route I think the fully loaded Xbox will come in at $399 while the DVR set top model will run from $299-$349. If I had to venture a guess as to what the hard drive size would be I would say the $399 model will come with 500GB and the other model having around 64GB or 120GB.
Games
I hope Microsoft has a few tricks up their sleeve when it comes to what games will be available on launch day. You have a new [amazon_link id=”B002I0H2AG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Gears of War[/amazon_link] coming on March 19th and you just had [amazon_link id=”B0050SYX8W” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Halo 4[/amazon_link] come out this past November so those are two of the biggest Xbox franchises that won’t have an impact come release day. Bungie will most likely have their next big property, Destiny, ready for the next Xbox but it will also release on the Xbox 360 so the new version better have a significant difference to make people buy a new system as opposed to a $60 game for a console they already own. Beyond Destiny it gets a bit hazy. We may get a new Alan Wake and Forza Racing but are those enough to bring in the sales especially going head to head against Sony? I hope at this year’s E3 Microsoft will have some surprises in store in the games department. All we can do is wait and see.
Sony is already in a better position than the last console cycle. They will be launching alongside the new Xbox instead of playing from a year behind. The fact that the PS3 has almost caught up sales wise with the 360 should give Sony hope that they can take the lead again in this new console generation. Make no mistake though, with Sony losing money from other divisions and the Vita not lighting the sales charts on fire they need the new Playstation to be a big seller. They will lose money on the system for the first few years but that should be expected. The need to get into as many homes as they can before the end of the year and not overcharge again for the new Playstation.
System Name
I was all ready to give my thoughts on the new Playstation name when I began this article and then developer Quantic Dream had to go and throw a wrench in my plans by registering the domain name SingularityPS4.com. Who really knows anymore? I was on board thinkin that Sony would just call their new system Playstation. No number or anything but now maybe they are keeping with the numerical tradition. Not that there is anything wrong with Playstation 4, I just felt that simplifying the name would be a good idea. Heck I even had an inkling that they would keep the code name Orbis on it. I mean we have the Vita, how odd is Orbis? And it would all fit into the easy to remember three letter/number shortened name (PSV, PSN, PS2, PS3, PS4). So as far as Sony goes I don’t feel as confident as I do with the new Xbox name. So just to be official I will say that it will be the Xbox Infinity/Xbox Next and the Playstation/Playstation 4.
Release Date and Price Point
Sony’s Kaz Hirai has gone on record saying that they will let Microsoft unveil their system first to the world and that’s all well and good but it won’t matter which company shows its hand first I think Sony will be first out of the gate. Even if it is only a two or three week head start they will be out first. Sony could go ahead and catch everyone off guard and release in late September but I don’t think that will happen. It looks more like mid- to late-October will be the sweet spot for the new Playstation. If I had to venture a guess I would say that October 25, 2013 seems like a good date. It would give them an 11 day head start and would launch on a Friday which is a much easier day for people to take off from work to play their new console. I can’t be the only one thinking that right?
The price of the system is the one part where Sony can not screw up twice in a row. While the PS3 is priced good now no one can deny that the initial price of the system is a major reason why the console took so long to take off. I remember being so excited when the PS3 was shown off, thinking of all the amazing things I would be playing on it and then they said the price. $599.99. My heart, wallet and balls all sank at the same time and I wasn’t the only one. So this go round Sony should get things right. Like the new Xbox I think they will hit at $399, but I am not entirely sure if they will launch with multiple skus. If there is only one model then I believe you will get a 500 or 750GB hard drive. Should Sony go to more than one the price may go past the $399 point. Now I would not be opposed to paying $449, especially if the system came with a 1TB hard drive. Some have said to push Vita sales and also combat the Wii U by announcing all kinds of different ways the [amazon_link id=”B003O6EATE” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Vita[/amazon_link] can be used with your new system that Sony could bundle a new Playstation and Vita together and charge like $599.99 for both. For people who don’t own a Vita, that would be an insanely great deal.
Games
Sony may be in a much better position when it comes to launch games. While Microsoft has their biggest franchises releasing on the 360, Sony’s are positioned to make a big splash in the early going on the new Playstation. Uncharted, Killzone, Infamous and Gran Turismo are all due for sequels and it would not surprise me if two of those franchises were announced as launch day titles. Add to that Sony’s huge PC shooter Planetside 2 rumored to be on its way for home release on the new Playstation and I could easily see Sony winning this battle. Let’s say Sony launches in October a few weeks before Microsoft and has a lineup that includes a new Uncharted, Killzone, Planetside 2 and all the third party support (granted Xbox will have it too) then my choice of system would be pretty clear. I love Xbox and will be getting both systems eventually but in the battle for my gaming buck this fall Uncharted and Killzone will always beat Alan Wake and Forza.
Honestly, in the gaming world we live in now there won’t be a clear winner or loser in the next generation console war. Both Sony and Microsoft will sell heaps of systems and gamers (like me) will eventually have both systems. Both companies have so many quality first party titles that there is really no way for one or the other to nosedive into nothingness. Even Nintendo, who enjoyed sales supremacy with the Wii, will be hanging around. The Wii U will sell no where near what its predecessor did and will most likely fall way behind the new Xbox and Playstation, but Nintendo will always have its core audience that will keep them afloat. If they can make through the Gamecube (which was awesome btw), they can make it through anything.
So this year as we learn all the specifics of the next generation of consoles and that feeling of excitement comes, like it always does with new systems, there is one clear winner. All of us.