Today we saw what was possibly the most exciting presentation on the future of gaming I have ever seen. The Playstation 4 was revealed but more importantly Sony put forward a message of expanding the gamer experience but keeping games at the core.
PS4 Meeting rundown after the jump.
Andrew House takes the stage and talks in length about making gaming simple, accessible. reactive to consumer needs highlighting ease of use and connectivity.
Mark Cerny (Lead System Architect) is here to talk about the goals of the PS4’s design:
- Nothing between the platform and the joy of play
- Fluidity to connect to a larger world
- What do developers want
As it turns out what that mean is that it’s a PC but in his words “Supercharged”.
The new dualshock controller looks quite similar to the prototype we’ve seen but slicker. New features involve a touchpad, headphone jack, share button and a lightbar to identify players and work in tandem with the new Kinect style camera that will be part of the PS4.
Next we get our first look at a game. Knack is a cartoony game in a world of humans and goblins. The player controls Knack a small creature capable of building himself like some mad hybrid of voltron and transformers.
The PS4 will feature a suspend/resume function which is a very nice touch. Video sharing built in which is accessible via the ‘Share’ button on the new dual shock. By pushing the button you can instantly share clips of video you have just played.
Social networking is going to be a very big element with a profile system similar to facebook, they are still respecting players use of nicknames/avatars and recognises the need for anonymity. Depending on how well this is integrated it could be the best of both worlds.
There is going to be background downloading built in which is nice but they’ve taken it a step further. They will allow games to be played whilst downloading and in a strange but very interesting move the console will download content it thinks you might like based on your habits. This could be an excellent form of discovery if well implemented.
No Backwards compatibility with PS3? Not unexpected but disappointing.
David Perry (Shiny, CEO of Gaikai) comes on next and I think we all know what’s coming
Gaikai is everywhere! Instantly try games in the store, remote play, let a friend take control of your game, multicasting, so so much. I can not even summarise the amount of options being made available with this technology.
PSVita remote play is there as expected working with all PS4 titles.
Gaikai is apparently building “fastest network in the world” because fans deserve it. This is part of Playstation Cloud which we saw registered earlier this week. The project is going to be large however and details will come at a later date.
The message for the PS4 is: Simple, Personalised, Immediate, Integrated, Social.
There’s a montage of a bunch of developers talking about how they were consulted with the PS4 design. My stream was not great so I didn’t get many names but Tim Schafer was there and that made me happy
Guerilla Games are showing off “Killzone Shadow Fall”. Looks great but we all remember the last time we had an early “trailer” for Killzone, so let’s be realistic people. The shooter crowd would be very happy with this I’d imagine though.
“DriveClub” is a pretty looking car game. I don’t know much about cars. I’ll give it a thumbs up however.
Sucker Punch reveals their new game about super powered humans in a police state. “Infamous: Second Son” does not seem to be a direct sequel to inFamous 2 but rather a new story in the universe.
Jonathan Blow is there and I can smell the tweed. He’s already made an explosions joke because he is like that. “The Witness” is going to launch exclusively on PS4 with their self publishing program.
David Cage following Jonathan Blow? EMOTION! Urgh my art is working so hard now. He’s showing off Quantic Dreams new engine. It’s an old man’s head! I’m sold.
Alex Evans from Media Molecule is going to “take creative gaming to the next level” by… recording our dreams? With the Move controller?! They’re using the Move controller to sculpt physically in the digital space. It actually looks pretty nice.
I don’t know what’s going on but there’s a band of puppets being controlled by move controllers. It is adorable and I want puppet slaves.
Yoshinori Ono from Capcom is not here to talk about Street Fighter. “Deep Down” is the working title of a new Capcom property running on their “Panta Ray” engine. It looks a little… Dark Souls?! Not gameplay but the engine looks fantastic.
Yoshihisa Hashimoto from Square Enix is next in the firing line with a real time tech demo of their next gen engine Luminous. It’s the same as last time though. Still pretty however.
More footage for Watchdogs which continues to impress. What the difference will be between current and next gen consoles remains to be seen though
Blizzard have taken the stage in what could be a massive windfall for Sony. “We have entered into a strategic partnership with sony in order to take over the world” is the opening joke but very possible. Diablo 3 is coming to console. Still a massive get for Sony but not the defining announcement it could have been.
Bungie are showing off Destiny. Lots of in engine footage and a few glimpses of gameplay. Still looking very Bungie. There will apparently be PlayStation exclusive content but what that involves remains to be seen.
We’re near the end now so the hardware reveal must be upon us…
No hardware reveal! I guess we’ll find out more later. Release Holiday 2013
Eight and a Half Bit 