Written by Nathan Goufas
Earlier this week Sony held an abruptly announced “meeting” in which after a build-up of online rumors and speculations they finally revealed the PlayStation 4. During their two hour event, Sony discussed a wide range of topics pertaining to the console, such as games, system specs as well as revealing the launch of the console to occur this holiday season.
Sony led off the presentation with going over how the PS4 is a very powerful piece of tech, with an advanced GPU and high-speed memory capable of producing impressive graphics to lead us into the next-gen of consoles. A sleek new Dual Shock 4 controller was the only hardware to be revealed, which doesn’t change the much-loved Dual Shock formula too much, opting to replace the convex analog sticks with concave ones. Share and Options buttons are new additions along an all-new touchpad on the front of the controller and a Move-like light bar which will communicate with the new PlayStation 4 Eye camera.
Not too many details were offered on how expansive the Share functionality will become, but it seems the main focus is streaming live footage or replays from your gaming sessions, as well as posting screenshots and game progress to social networks. This seems like a much-welcomed feature to even further evolve online social gameplay with friends.
Some other new features include Remote Play, which enables anyone with a PlayStation Vita to use that device to stream and play your PS4 games on, similar to the Wii U GamePad. With Sony’s acquisition of Gaikai, there was also talk about the future of cloud gaming with support for streaming legacy PlayStation titles as well as demos of PS4 titles.
It wouldn’t be a proper console reveal without at least one or two brand new titles to show. Sony went a little beyond that by revealing 10 upcoming titles, with five being new reveals. Knack, an action-platformer directed by Mark Cerny, was the first reveal and featured a Pixar-esque art style along with traditional platform gaming.
Killzone: Shadow Fall seems to be a spin-off, and mostly your typical first-person shooter fare, however as expected for a next-gen title it looked visually stunning. We occasionally got a glimpse of some impressive looking cutscene sequences that were nothing short of a joy to look at.
Next up was DriveClub, a new simulation racing game from Evolution Studios. There is a strong focus on “team racing” within the game, which wasn’t really detailed extensively but it definitely sounds like an interesting concept if done right. The car models feature an excruciating amount of detail, not yet seen before by any other racing game.
We also got a look at Infamous: Second Son, which seems to be set in a big brother style future where an ordinary looking citizen with super powers fights the government and takes back our freedom.
Lastly was a reveal of medieval-style title Deep Down, including brief footage showing a knight taking on a fire-breathing dragon. I would say it was probably the best looking demo there and had the most potential for delivering the fresh new gameplay and visuals you expect out of new gaming hardware.
A few other third-party game announcements also came out of the event, with a reveal that a new Final Fantasy is being developed, Diablo III will be ported over, and that Jonathan Blow’s upcoming puzzle The Witness will be released on PlayStation 4 first. We also got a look at some brand-new footage from Destiny as well as Watch_Dogs, both of which so far seem to be games to watch out for next year.
Even though we’re at the very beginning of even just talking about the PlayStation 4, not to mention we have not even seen the physical hardware yet, it’s already very exciting to hear about some of the features of the upcoming console and what it’s bringing to the table come holiday 2013. We are predicting by November for sure. Stay tuned!