The NYC event for Sony was indeed meant for the announcement of the PlayStation 4, which is the official name of the next-generation console. It will be arriving Holiday 2013, but the console itself and the pricing was not revealed.
“Expect the best franchises to be even better,” said Sony Computer Entertainment President Andrew House. “Expect powerful opportunities to play even when away from the primary console.”
“The living room is no longer the center of the PlayStation ecosystem,” House said. “The player is.”
Specs have also been revealed:
- Supercharged PC Architecture
- X86 PCU
- Enhanced PC GPU
- 8GB RAM
- Internal Hard Drive
Games revealed at the event are listed below:
- Knack – New IP from SCE Japan Studio
- Killzone: Shadow Fall – A sidestory title with what appears to be a new protagonist
- DriveClub – New IP, a team-based racing game, from Evolution Studios
- inFAMOUS: Second Son – A side story with what appears to be a new protagonist.
- The Witness – New IP from Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid
- Deep Down – Working title for a new IP from Capcom
The DualShock 4, the leaked controller from last week, is also the official way gamers will play the PS4.
Uploads and downloads will take place in the background and players’ last moments in-game will save automatically.
Videos are saved, stored, and can be shared/streamed seamlessly. Gamers watching can even take over control of the game at the player’s permission to help beat difficult parts of a title.
Livestream broadcasting can be performed with a single button press via the new “Share” button on the DualShock 4. If gamers wants to have a set time to broadcast, they can set a schedule on the console to do so.
The PS4 will also allow gamers to try out any game on the PSN Store for free. Games download from beginning to end, so they can be played while still downloading.
Remote Play, which was introduced to work with the PS3 and Vita, is also available on the PS4. Sony wants every PS4 game to have Remote Play functionality on the Vita.
Support for several apps such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, MLB, NHL, Facebook, Crunchyroll, and more will be present on the next-gen device.
PS3 games won’t be “natively” available on the PS4. Possibility of backwards compatibility “some day.”
Killzone: Shadow Fall and DriveClub showed the graphical power of the PS4, and it’s a beauty. Screenshots will be placed on the site as soon as we can grab them.
David Cage showed more graphical power with Beyond: Two Souls by demonstrating how the pixel count for characters has now increased for titles on the console. In Heavy Rain it was 15,000. Beyond will have 30,000.
The PS4 will support PlayStation Move.
Every major third-party publisher will support the PS4.
Capcom has a new engine, code named Panta Rhei, specifically to take advantage of the tech within the PS4.
Square Enix stepped on stage after Capcom to present the Agni’s Philosophy demo in order to further show the PS4’s power with the Luminous engine. The publisher also revealed that the next Final Fantasy game would be revealed at E3.
Following Square Enix, Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot hit the stage to officially announce that Watch_Dogs is indeed a next-gen title and will release on the PS4. The publisher then presented a new demo of the game showing off even more features from the highly-anticipated title.
Blizzard has revealed that it has a “strategic partnership” with Sony. The giant company also announced that Diablo III is coming to both the PS3 and PS4. It will feature four-player split-screen co-op. More information will come at PAX East.
Finishing up the third-party showcase, Activision took the stage to announce that Bungie’s Destiny will indeed come to the PS4. The game’s very first footage was then unveiled to the audience. Bungie then dropped a bombshell, revealing that Destiny will have exclusive content on the PS4.
