Sony
Despite the Wii-U being on shelves for 3 months, the gaming world saw Sonys unveil event on February 20th 2013 as the start of the next generation gaming consoles. Sony didnt fail to impress, coming out swinging with a long conference that showcased the controller, new features and, most importantly, games. Not many predicted this kind of event, rather just a simple unveiling of the system and telling fans to be excited for E3. This really set the tone for the next year, Sony are ready to fight to win gamers. At the February 20th event Sony showed
InFamous: Second Son,
Killzone: Shadowfall, Drive Club,
Knack,
The Witness,
Deep Down and
Destiny. 7 games, 5 of which will be Playstation exclusives and 5 of which are new IPs. The message was clear, buy this system to play games you wont get elsewhere. By showing
InFamous and
Killzone, Sony were aiming at their hardcore fanbase they established with the PS3. With Knack they continued the Sony tradition of having great platform games like
Jak & Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot and
Sly Racoon. With The Witness they displayed their backing of small indie developers who made a great impact on PS3 through PSN with games like
Journey and
The Unfinished Swan. They then presented a demo from Capcom which felt inherently Japanese, which highlights Sonys continued relationship with its home nation. Finally they showed
Drive Club, Watch Dogs and
Destiny, games that will appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers for their online capabilities. Simply put, Sony gave something for everyone, gamers of almost every genre had something to sink their teeth into. A strong showing. A few gamers voiced their annoyance at Sony not showing the physical PS4 box at their event but it didnt bother me. The PS4 event was pretty darn good and we came away with so much to talk about that the box didnt seem a big deal. In saying that I am really interested in what the machine will look like, especially after seeing how awesome the new Xbox looks. For Sony, E3 2013 will be huge, its their final chance to woo gamers and try and win back those they lost to Microsoft. First and foremost they will show the box, which was confirmed the day before Microsofts unveil event, which means well finally know what were getting. Next Sony will show off some of the new PS4 features like Gaikai, the cloud storage company they bought, the customary services like Netflix etc. as well as features like suspend and watching other gamers play, like we already seen, and hopefully some new things theyve yet unveiled. Then come the games. Well undoubtedly see more of the games we seen on February 20th like
Killzone and
Knack but well also see some new games. Thats whats really exciting, for me anyway, the prospect of some new IPs or sequels everyone is waiting for. The fact of the matter is Sony own 12 studios. We know Naughty Dog has been making The
Last Of Us, Quantic Dream have been toiling away on
Beyond: Two Souls, Polyphony Digital have already announced
Gran Turismo 6 for PS3 and Sony Santa Monica recently released
God of War: Ascension. All of those are PS3 titles, Sony confirmed all 12 of their studios were making PS4 games. So Guerilla Games are making
Killzone: Shadowfall, Sucker Punch have
InFamous: Second Son and Sony Computer Entertainment Studio Japan have been making
Knack and Evolution Studio have been making
Drive Club. This means there are at least 8 Sony owned studios that are making PS4 games we havent heard about yet. Could Naughty Dog be making Uncharted 4 or something new? Is Santa Monica working on God Of War 4 or a new IP? The possibility of great sequels like these or new games from such proven studios is equally exciting. Sonys conference is sure to be interesting, it could exceed our wildest expectations and it could severely disappoint us. Either way itll provide loads to talk, or complain, about. If their PS4 unveil event was anything to go by I would be surprised if they dropped the ball with their E3 conference, heres hoping they can continue to impress.