As I type this, Sony’s great big PlayStation 4 announcement event has just wrapped up in NYC. A parade of big name developers have been coming out one by one to sing the praises of the new console. Sizzle reels for new games have sizzled, and the fashion-forward game designer appears to be wearing sport jackets over a T-shirt and jeans this season. Events like this are theater pieces; they’re principally about creating buzz rather than offering much in the way of concrete details (like pictures of the PS4 console itself). This one was lighter on actual information than most. Let’s break down what we found out and what we still don’t know.
IT’S DEVELOPER-FRIENDLY HARDWARE
Sony spent the first part of the presentation going to great lengths to explain how closely it consulted with game developers while determining the architecture of the console. One of the company’s big video presentations involved a who’s who of designers describing how Sony approached them to ask what features would be on their wish list for the PS4. The PS3 took quite a bit of flak from game studios as being a notoriously difficult development platform, and Sony clearly wants to turn that perception around within the industry.
Developer gripes with the PS3 were thanks in part to Sony’s proprietary Cell processor at the heart of the machine. Those appear to be out the window with the PS4 and have been replaced with extremely high-end PC hardware familiar to coders who actually have to make games run on the console. It also would make it much easier for developers to port PC (and one assumes, Xbox) games over to the PlayStation. In fact, Blizzard Entertainment’s Chris Metzen was on hand to announce a PS4 version of Diablo III, and Bungie reps were on hand to show about 2.5 seconds of new footage from the upcoming shooter Destiny.
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What’s that mean for gamers? Hopefully, it means a much larger, better-working library of games. The PS3’s library certainly wasn’t slim, but there’s no question that the Xbox had far more third-party support. That imbalance ought to change with this hardware.
WE STILL DON’T HAVE A CONCRETE PRICE POINT OR RELEASE DATE
Well, we have the rather cryptic “Holiday 2013,” but why be so vague? Something tells me Sony is keeping its options open in case it has to renege on that promise in the next six months.
THE “SHARE” BUTTON IS ACTUALLY PRETTY COOL
Get this: the PS4 will, at all times, record and save video of your last 15 minutes of gameplay. Want to post a highlight reel to Facebook or share it with your friends on PSN? Push one button. Want to have your friends watch a live stream of your session or even remotely grant them control of your game? Same deal. Gimmicky, perhaps, but the rare gimmick that’s actually pretty interesting.
SONY WANTS YOU TO BE ABLE TO STREAM ANY GAME FROM ANY PLAYSTATION EVER
This will be possible thanks to technology provided by Gaikai, the cloud computing/streaming media company that Sony purchased in July of 2012, with the express intention of souping up the PS4. No, it’s not working yet, at least according to Gaikai CEO David Perry. But they want it to! The downside?
“PS3 titles are not natively supported on PS4,” said Perry.
Hmm. So you can’t just pop your old discs into your new PS4 and expect them to work. Don’t throw out that old console yet, kids.
IF YOU OWN A PS VITA, YOU CAN USE IT LIKE THE WII U TABLET CONTROLLER
You’ll be able to to let your kids/spouse/roommate use the TV while you transfer your game in progress onto your Vita and take it elsewhere in the house. So, that’s pretty cool.
YEP THERE’S A TOUCHPAD AND A CAMERA AND MOTION CONTROLS
The console will ship with a stereoscopic, motion-sensing camera, and there will indeed be a touchpad on the face of the control, as many outlets had predicted. Also, the PS4 will be able to be remotely controlled from phones and tablets, although specific details weren’t given.
THE GAMES LOOK FLIPPIN’ GORGEOUS
Sony showed off quite a few tech demos and a few actual chunks of gameplay footage from various titles. Most were quite vague, although certainly visually impressive. There will be a cute cartoony platformer (Knack), A slick looking racer (Driveclub), a proven PlayStation franchise (Infamous: Second Son) and a weird, indie, genre-defying puzzler (The Witness, from Jonathan Blow, of Braid fame), but all demos were short on details. The message there was, essentially, “Look! These projects exist!”
By far the best of the bunch though was UbiSoft’s information-age thriller Watchdogs, which was demoed live, and has easily the biggest “wow” factor of any any game slated for the upcoming year. The latest entry in the Killzone series, Killzone: Shadow Fall, also looks great, but there was little else in the presentations that showed much in the way of gameplay.
Also, major props are due to Media Molecule, the studio behind Little Big Planet, for a truly amazing presentation involving user-designed digital puppets controlled via the PlayStation Move controller, that hopefully will be more than just a tech demo.
SO WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Truthfully, not a lot more than we did earlier today. This was a PR exercise intended to set the media abuzz and to fire a warning shot across Microsoft’s bow. Why create so much hubub when so many factors seem to be up in the air? It’s possible we’re in for a slow drip of details in the coming days as Sony lets more information slip to keep interest up. Stay tuned.
Hmm is the share button is designed to put sites like Twitch.tv out of business? I like the idea of spectator mode however finding a friend who has completed something that is giving you trouble could be hard for many of us especially if your friends play different games than you or if you are antisocial on the computer.