PlayStation 4 : February Sony Presser Recap!

It happened. Sony pre-emptively announced their newest thing to get excited for with the PlayStation 4 coming this holiday 2013. Just less than four months away from the biggest gaming stage, Sony decided to go the Nintendo Direct route on us all and spoiler some of the E3 fun. So read the snippets of the 2 hour event and watch the various videos to get a further analysis and live from New York, it’s Sony’s Pre E3 February Conference!

DETAILS

Announcement

After a funky tune in the intermission, Sony opens with a flashy focus on fun and images of the past games, celebrating their heritage. Andrew House steps onto the stage, British dialect included, with dire quotes stating “stakes are high” for Sony. As well as “Consumer centric” and “most personalize gaming experience” for the announcement of, wait for it, the PlayStation 4.

Tech Specs

Lead system architect, Mark Cerny tags out House with the entrance music of Crash Bandicoot’s N. Sanity Beach (because everyone knows that theme) and gets technical of the next system.

CPU X86
Enhanced PC GPU
8 GB Unified Memory
Local Storage HDD

Yep, that was the rumored PlayStation 4 controller we ran back last week

Cerny continued with the unveiling of the Dualshock 4 controller, said to have a “Tighter sense of control…enhance the rumble.” A touch pad, not touch screen, lies atop the controller as well as headphone jack and the highly questioned “Share” button. With it, social networking and other features are in place. Then a Lightbar to signify players Kinect/PS Eye like stereo camera to “sense the depth of the environment in front of it and track the 3D position of the controller via lightbar.”

Gaikai, and the Numerous Bits of PlayStation Info

Dave Perry, ceo of Gaikai, trots out to tell everyone why Sony dropped $380 million for them. Time will tell if it’ll truly pay off, as of now it’s nothing but promising changes. Digital games can be playable upon a partial download, while the system sucks up the rest in the background. In addition, the PlayStation 4 can suspend games with the power button to leave and come back for later, akin to the Vita’s standby mode.

Followed by more details on the use of the share button, the PlayStation 4 will let players broadcast a live feed, thanks to the support of Facebook and Ustream. Not only being able to be a fly on the wall, but able to take control of a friend’s game, assisting them on their way to completion. Next, for the Gaikai head, is seamless trial playing for the PlayStation 4 to every game available, which means automatic start up and play for the console. Remote play siphons some of the thunder of the Wii U with the Vita being able to continue the play and reduce transmission times.

A cavalcade of developer praise through buzzwords and motion graphics later…backwards compatibility comes into the picture to squander hopes of playing PlayStation 3 games, physically. For the PlayStation 4, it’ll be cloud-based.

Showcased Games!

Knack

And to the first PS4 game, Knack, a personal project of Mark Cerny’s. Rather bury us with the graphical powerhouses we’ll see in a bit, but of a shape shifting robot with orange eyebrows and hair reminiscent of Crash Bandicoot. Knack tells a tail of an experiment used against the relentless goblins warring against humans in a 3^rd person action-brawler game. Gameplay evokes a Ratchet & Clank style with Knack acting very Clank like shifting to a giant brute bot to his regular small stature. Trailer below…

Killzone: Shadow Fall

Michael Denny, Manger of Guerrilla Games, gave us a new Killzone for the PlayStation 4 called Killzone: Shadow Fall. The sequence starts off in Vekta City as a helicopter flies over a beautiful and lush city filled with waterfalls and luminous blues. The lighting, the shadows, and everything there crafts a flowing and rich world.

Then a building blows as the hellghast invade Vekta City, you’re stunned. A Vekta soldier unveils himself to be a helghast spy and fires at the panicking people, you stab him as he nears and a first person shooter sequence starts. After that, you’re treated to watching the guy hang on from a rope and later blow up because we like that stuff.

Then again, Killzone 2 had a glossy trailer too back in 2005. Decide for yourself.

Evolution Studios’ Director, Matt Southern, spoke with much fervor about his “Team based racing” game of DriveClub. A longley awaited title with “Borderline insane” car details with First person door opening and car starting. Basically, a placeholder for pretentious car game until Gran Turismo, decide if DriveClub is worth a restart or lock down.

After being sucker punched by that automobile pun, the developer of that same action gives a cinematic look at InFamous: Second Son. Nate Fox of Sucker Punch opens with his story of police brutality and pessimism of the enforcing power to later tie in to the PlayStation 4 game. Second Son places us in a City 17 like world where everything is monitored for your protection. That is, until a select number of people with superhuman abilities revolt against the machine.

Jonathan Blow, of Braid fame, debuts the Witness to release on the PlayStation 4 as a timed exclusive. Explore a compact, open island going from confusion to epiphany with 25 hours of gameplay in place. A bright, colorful world, the Witness has puzzle mechanics like pencil mazes, possibly utilizing the touchpad of the PlayStation 4 Dual shock.

David Cage, of himself and Quantum Dreams, pompously walks out and talks a big game about emotions in the silent film era and shows a creepy, photo-realistic Christopher Lloyd “emoting.”

Media Molecule comes out with their love of the PS Move, seriously. Their new design of the controller will now be used for sculpting and animation creations. The peripheral was demonstrated for creative endeavors such as painting, sculpting, and full-on mariette maneuvers that look fantastic.

Yoshinori Ono of Capcom gave his own retrospective PlayStation look leading up to a new engine and game for the PlayStation 4. Codename: Panta Rhei, “Deep down” a working title by Ono, uses all of the subtle emotions Cage tried to convey with actual footage of a graphically-heavy PlayStation 4 game of a medieval knight fighting a dragon. No confirmation on if this was Dragon’s Dogma 2 or not.

Square Enix became the awkward shut-in dampening our spirits with a non-announcement and trailer of a non-game shown before. Yoshihisha Hashimoto prompts out a cinematic of a Final Fantasy tech demo debuted last year. Then Final Fantasy brand director, Shinji Hashimoto, comes out and tells us to be excited for E3 this year because they have something and why the heck is Square Enix even there?

Ubisoft head leaps right out with Watch Dogs. A developer struts out to pad the electronic caper with a live demo of the protagonist, Allen, the cyber vigilante. We see him stealing from the ATM, identifying random civilians, and doing hacking things.