News
Playstation Meeting 2013
Cordova, TN, Feb. 20, in the
year of our Lord 2013-- Sony has been teasing some
important announcements would come out of Playstation Meeting
2013 on February 20th, in the year of our Lord 2013. Rumors were
the Playstation 4 (PS4) would be announced. The rumors were
correct. Sony made this announcement in a long, and very glitchy
online presentation. There were some people in live attendance
but it was dark and difficult to tell who they were.
The glitchy presentation started with a video of Playstation
history. From the first Playstation, to the PS2, and finally the
PS3. It was a rah rah moment, showing how awesome they feel they
are. Andrew House came out to talk about the Playstation Vita
(PS Vita). He bragged on how powerful this little hand held is.
He did not address why the PS Vita has been such a flop in terms
of sales. He then touched on Journey and unique Playstation
experiences. He talked about how the Playstation becomes more
powerful each and every system.
The PS4 is going to be developer led, and consumer inspired. You
will be able to stay connected to your system while you are
away. With the press of a button the system can be put into a
sleep mode, and where you are in a game is kept in RAM. Andrew
claimed they are the leading authority on Play.
Mark Cerny came out to discuss the Playstation eco-system. It is
obvious at this point that social gaming, and cloud gaming is
going to be a part of the PS4. Wait for it. Mark talks about how
connected the world is, with so many interactive devices. He
wants nothing to be between you and the game. He reinforces the
“for developers,” concept. He goes over the specs of the machine
– sort of. He shows the controller and talks about the share
button and the touch pad. Looks like a PS3 controller just with
a few modifications. There is a sensor bar that the controller
works with. He gives us a live demo and we get some more Star
Trek speak in terms of the specs.
Knack is shown, and it shows how many different objects can be
moved around at once. The game looks and feels lame, but the
technology is impressive.
Sony has five key concepts they want to focus on now:
Simple
Immediate
Social
Personalized
Integrated
These five are gone over in some detail. There is still
obviously a lot of room for interpretation. Social and
Integrated make sense, and are pretty clear. They want to let
you connect with friends while you play games. If your friend
buys a game, the PS4 will let you know so you can also make the
same purchase. A nice way to freely advertise.
David Perry from Gaikai comes out and he wants to talk about the
Playstation Network (PSN), cloud gaming (told ya'll it was
coming), and Playstation Plus. The PS4 will have Gaikai on it –
crickets were chirping in excitement. The new PSN will be where
gamers are central. Buy only what you want. Buy only the games
you love. The system will learn your preferences and tailor
towards your likes. Facebook and Ustream will be a part of this
new system. He wants a social gaming network.
Spectate is a new feature that was brought to light, and is very
interesting. Thanks to the share button you can send pictures of
video of the game you were playing. Friends can even see your
screen while you are playing. If you are really stuck you can
ask a friend to beat a level, boss, whatever for you. Developers
will have access to Spectate and can watch you as you play. If
you are really good they can decide to make you a director so
you can make changes to the game. The big brother is watching
concept here is really freaky.
Remote play is then covered. Lets say that someone else wants
the television set while you are playing on the PS4. No problem,
just transfer your game over to your PS Vita. That is if you own
a PS Vita. This could easily kill one of the big selling points
of the Wii U. A demo of this was shown with Knack. Sony wants to
push their Video and Music Unlimited services. They also hope to
have all PS1, PS2, and PS3 games on the Cloud. Nothing was
mentioned about price here. Do they expect gamers to pay twice
for the games they purchased on those old systems?
Michael Denny came out from Worldwide Studios to introduce a
gentleman from Guerilla. He showed off a disgusting lame game
that was offensive on so many levels. Then we finally get a
decent game for families – Drive Club. This will be a racing
game that is team based. Challenges can be issued from smart
devices to others all over the world in the game. The social
aspect is pushed hard for Drive Club. What if you want to play
alone though? What if you do not want your children connecting
with strangers online? None of that was addressed. Drive Club
has a first person perspective for the racing game. Other camera
angles were not addressed.
A Sucker Punch representative came out with another anti-family
game. Then there was a mention of Indie games. Jonathan Blow the
inventor of Braid came out. He talked about his new puzzle game
The Witness. This game looks awesome. There should be 25 hours
of game play in The Witness. Everything in this world is there
for a reason. They condensed as much as they could so there was
no rehash in this open world.
David Cage came out to discuss how to get players emotionally
involved. He chronicled how many polygons were on each system,
and what the PS4 will have. He showed an elderly gentleman's
head and showed how his face would exhibit different emotions.
We got it Sony, this new system will be powerful.
Alex Evans came out with a few language issues. He talked about
recording your dreams. He discussed the problems they had with
being creative and designing things. He then announced they
loved the PS Move controller, and were going to marry it with
the PS4. AWKWARD!! He showed an interesting demo of the game. It
is unclear how this new game from them will work. How simple
will it be?
Now we get into the partners Sony has for the Playstation 4.
Yoshinori Ono from Capcom came out to discuss the past Capcom
has had with Sony, and the future. He showed a demo of a
questionable game for families. There was violence in this
medieval game with a dragon attacking a knight. Working title of
Deep Down. Hopefully it does not go into macabre and morbid
territory. Next up was Yoshihisa Hashimoto from Square Enix with
a bloody, and violent demo. Shinji Hashimoto also mentioned a
new Final Fantasy game for the PS4 that will be shown at E3
2013. Yves Guillemot from Ubisoft came out to show an
anti-family game that was first shown at E3 2012. Chris Metzen
Blizzard Entertainment came out to crash the Sony party. Chris
explained their console roots, and the anti-family game they
will bring to the PS3 and PS4. Chris also joked about taking
over the world now that they are with Sony. Activision came out
with an anti-family game from developer Bungie.
Finally after this extremely long, and glitchy presentation
there are bringing it home. They are going over their concepts
again. They say it will be out by Holiday 2013. Is that
Christmas? Thanksgiving? Boxing Day? Fourth of July? Labor Day?
Saint Patrick's Day? Which holiday Sony? Sadly Sony had very
little for families to be excited about. It looks like (yet
again) they are going full tilt towards the hardcore gamers.
Hopefully in the coming months there will be some news to
remotely interest families in the Playstation 4.