Blizzard has announced that the PS3 and PS4 versions of Diablo 3 will not require a constant internet connection like its PC brother. You can play the game through local multiplayer with four players on screen at once and the camera will simply pan out for a view of all the characters.
Also Diablo 3 will not be able to cross platform game between the PC, PS3 and PS4. So whichever version you have that is who you will be gaming with online also.
Diablo 3 is set for release this fall.
Guerrilla Games took their PS4 exclusive Killzone: Shadow Fall to The Jimmy Fallon Show and let the host and guest Anthony Anderson get a chance to play. This should put to rest any rumors saying that the demo on Wednesday night was not gameplay because when you see how badly Fallon and Anderson suck at this it is pretty evident that this sucker is real.
Fun fact: all the weight Anthony Anderson lost was used as Jaden Smith’s stunt double in The Karate Kid.
http://youtu.be/rGlu3e9kdks
One of the great surprises last night was when Blizzard took to the stage and finally confirmed that Diablo 3 would be making the jump from PC to consoles. Not only that, but the loot filled dungeon crawler will see release on both the PS3 and PS4.
The game will have new customized controls for consoles, new camera perspective and a new interface. For those of you (like me) without a quality PC this is very welcome news. Well that and I like a controller more than keyboard and mouse. I know, I know blasphemy blah, blah, blah.
Diablo 3 will be playable at this year’s PAX East on March 22-24.
We are only one day removed from Sony’s announcement of the Playstation 4 and still months away from E3 and already the console has a modest, but very good lineup of games. Ubisoft, Sucker Punch, Guerrilla and even Square showed their future titles and it was enough to get this gamer excited for this fall when the PS4 comes home. Here are the games we know of so far:
Killzone: Shadow Fall (Guerrilla)
Infamous: Second Son (Sucker Punch)
Watch Dogs (Ubisoft)
Knack (Studio Japan)
Diablo 3 (Blizzard)
Drive Club (Evolution)
Final Fantasy (Square)
Destiny (Bungie)
The Witness (Thekla)
Deep Down (Capcom)
The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED)
Sony also said that a plethora of studios are already pledging support for the PS4. Instead of listing them all check out a screenshot of last night’s event and see that every major player is going to be involved with developing for the next Playstation.
If one game truly took the crowd’s attention last night it was Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs. The game already won everyone over at last year’s E3 and the demo shown last night just furthered the fact that this may be a special game on the way. The feel I got from the trailer was it is a little Minority Report mixed with Grand Theft Auto, but you appear to be doing good acts instead of killing hookers. But you never know there is always time to add in hooker killing. He does steal some cash from an ATM, but I don’t compare that to killing ladies of the night.
Watch Dogs will release this fall and should be a PS4 launch title. The only confirmed consoles so far are the PS4 and Wii U.
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.
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.
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 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.
We’re seeing the peak of the current console generation. The franchises that have been the staple of the two heavy-hitters (360 & PS3) are either on their third (fourth) installments, or will be within the next year. Nintendo, meanwhile, finds its support in franchises that aren’t tied to stories that need an ending, and can be adapted to new hardware easily. While it’s true that this current run has a longer lifespan than previous generations – something that has only been extended by the additions of the Kinect and the Move – I think it’s time to start thinking about what kind of announcements we can be expecting as early as E3. I’ve decided to do a breakdown that examines what I think the “next big thing” will be.
1. The Idea
2. The Hardware
3. The Software
4. The Subscription Service
Finally, I’ll give what evidence – real and imaginary – I have as to how some of my predictions are already all but confirmed, as well as address some of the glaring problems with my concept.
The Idea
I’ll get straight to the point on this part.
• I think the first genuine next generation console will be completely downloading based.
• I don’t believe it will have any sort of disc-reader, and there won’t be hard copies of the games.
• Current subscribers to the older generation service will be able to move their profile over, along with any supported content.
• The initial games will also have versions available on the older console, and there will be support for cross-generation interaction.
• At launch, backwards compatibility will be limited to a few downloadable “classics.”
Just let that sink in.
Before you go into knee-jerk reaction mode, take a look at the current industry. Steam, or other services like it, have more or less eliminated the hard-copy side of PC gaming, something which was met with severe resistance at first. While it’s true that the same drawbacks still exist – no physical copy of the game to call your own, any nice paper manuals or art books, etc – these things have not kept some services from exploding over the past five years.
Current console-based online services already offer services that could be used as the groundwork for such a system: games on demand, downloadable expansions, older-generation classics with updated gameplay, etc.
Players have already been acclimated to the concept of an online profile that contains large amounts of their data, both on the front-end (XBL, PSN) and within the games themselves (all of a player’s advancement in any Call of Duty is stored on the servers).
There’s one more thing I’d like to get out of the way now: we’ve already hammered out one very specific point, which is that this would more than likely be a Microsoft console. The concept, as I see it at least, would need the specialization of a software company, and one that already had a solid foundation in online console services. To be blunt, I don’t think that PSN is worth the price – and it’s free. They have stepped up with some of the features of Playstation Plus – free games, discounted games – but in the long run I would not trust Sony to produce this sort of device and support it efficiently. Anyone who disagrees is more than welcome to Google “PSP Go” and then get back to me. The one big positive in their corner is the partnership with Steam, which would conceivably allow them to turn certain duties over to people who handle this kind of thing far, far more effectively.
You didn’t come here to listen to me whine about Sony, though; otherwise you would have clicked the link to my article “Why Sony Smells Bad and Is Icky Too.” You came to read an overly long list of bullet points about the future of console tech from someone who has never worked in the industry, and dang it, I’m going to oblige:
The Hardware
The Software
The Subscription Service
Standard Features
Basic Account
Premium Account
Evidence That I’m a Psychic Genius
Not to toot my horn, but I’ve been chipping away at this idea for a while, and with each passing day the industry does more and more things that support my theory. For triple-A titles, the time between retail launch and availability for downloading is getting shorter and shorter. More and more mid-range developers are turning to Arcade / PSN titles to generate revenue; some developers like Double Fine and Twisted Pixel have risen to prominence almost exclusively through downloadable titles. Going direct-download would eliminate manufacturing costs for publishers, which would theoretically mean lower prices and the potential for games that are a risky investment to see the light of day.
On the internet-connectivity front, while initial reaction to digital rights management (DRM) systems that require internet connection was harsh, it hasn’t stopped games that utilize them from being exceptionally successful. Nor has the need for internet slowed the progress of paid and free-to-play MMOs and strategy games. And while I have met a few people in passing who own consoles but have no internet, I can’t say I personally have any gamer friends who aren’t connected any time they play. The availability concerns of five years ago are almost a moot point, as the spread of fiber optic and advancements in broadband technology mean all but the most rural areas can get high-speed connections.
Reasons I’m a Drivel-Spewing Crackpot
While all of this hyper-connected-instant-download talk sounds fun, there are more than a few reasons this would never work. For starters, gaming is a retail industry, and you know when retail makes the most money: Holidays. You take away the ability of girlfriends, brothers, aunts, and parents to put games under a tree or in a birthday bag, and you can almost hear the slam of doors as studios shut down. Speaking of parents, they’re going to have to start learning how these systems work in case something goes wrong with one of the accounts; they’ll need to be familiar enough with the system to purchase games, at the very least. Games which will need to be paid for with a credit or debit card, or monetary value cards like the ones current sold for Steam and PSN.
Of course, those same parents – or even adult gamers – might be stymied from buying anything when they realize that maybe they should have listened to what the guy at GameStop Was saying about “internet only” something-or-other. I couldn’t even begin to give you an exact figure on how many systems / titles (PSP Go, MAG, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft) I sold to people who looked me in the eye and said they understood, only to try and return the items a few hours later. Not to mention that even the most tech-savvy buyer is helpless in the face of a service outage; Comcast issues keeping you from playing online are one thing, but to have your console rendered completely unusable might be a deal breaker for consumers.
The Middle Ground
In all likelihood, this concept may be a little too radical for consoles that will conceivably be announced and launched this year. That being said, devices like Valve’s “Piston” and the Ouya are paving the way, and I do think we’ll see an increase in titles that have launch-day on demand availability. There might even be room in publishers’ plans for smaller projects that get used as test dummies for digital-only distribution; who knows, some games might even be offered on a direct-streaming service. We’ll also see an increase in cloud storage limits, and better streamlining when using one profile on multiple devices.
Whatever is (or isn’t) coming down the pipes, it’s definitely an exciting time to be a gamer. What are some of your hopes, fears, wants, needs, and dreams for the future of consoles?