E3 REVIEW SONY
PLAYSTATION KEEPS ITS MOMENTUM WITH COMPREHENSIVE E3 SHOWING
Sony may not have matched last year’s E3 show-stopping performance, but it was nevertheless a big conference, jam packed with announcements, hardware and games. Christopher Dring analyses its performance with European boss Jim Ryan
T
he last time PlayStation ruled the console space they did it with swagger and arrogance.
It meant the media almost delighted in its fall from grace. Cocky old Sony had messed it all up with PS3 and fallen down. That’ll learn them. And you know what? It did. There
wasn’t even a hint of arrogance about Sony at E3 this year. It didn’t even mention the PS4’s fantastic start and how it has rapidly opened up a big gap on Xbox One. In fact, Sony was being nice. “Microsoft did well. It was the
right approach,” said PlayStation’s European head Jim Ryan on Xbox’s conference. “What I hope people take away
from E3 is that there is a stream of really good games coming in all shapes and sizes. To that extent the two press conferences – ours and Microsoft’s – were similar. “But what we tried to do was also
paint a picture about innovation. I’m really proud that in the first E3 after the launch of a new platform, we are not sitting back and saying: ‘that’s it for three or four years’. We talked about Morpheus, PlayStation Now and PlayStation TV. They’re all quite different.”
NEWS GALORE It was certainly a comprehensive press conference. Sony detailed 25 free-to-play games, announced PlayStation TV for the West, revealed the first Ratchet and Clank movie trailer, unveiled an exclusive TV series called Powers, showed off a white PS4 and so on and so forth.
June 20th 2014 It was hard to fault any of it. But
if there’s one concern, it’s that most games shown on stage are not out until 2015. LittleBigPlanet 3 was one of just a handful of games announced for Christmas. “I don’t think the Q4 line-up is a
worry,” defends Ryan. “We have The Last of Us, which should bridge nicely between Watch Dogs and Destiny. Then there’s FIFA, Far Cry, Assassin’s
For a long time Sony has talked about all its divisions working together and for many
years it was nonsense. Jim Ryan, SCEE
Creed, Battlefield, Call of Duty, LittleBigPlanet, DriveClub. There are ten or 15 pretty big games in that Q4 period. “I agree that there could have
been a few more games in the first half of the year, that would have been desirable. But we’ve still sold pretty much every piece of hardware that we’ve been sent.” Indeed, it’s not so much about
Sony’s first-party offering this Q4, but what the third-parties are bringing, and the platform holder has teamed up with most of them. Far Cry 4, for instance, has an option on PS4 where gamers can play against others that don’t even own the game. The beta for
06
ONE of the more interesting reveals during the PlayStation conference was the news that PlayStation TV (previously PlayStation Vita TV) will launch this year in Europe and the US. The device will retail for £85 and will let users stream content from their PS4s to other TV screens in the house. So for instance, from the living room to the bedroom. It can also play PS Vita games
(at least ones that don’t use the handheld’s touch screen) and PSOne and PSP titles, which can be downloaded to the device. But things get most exciting when PlayStation Now launches in Europe (Sony insists this is a ‘when’, not an ‘if’). Via that, the PSTV will be able to stream and play PS3 and PS2 games and, in the future, PS4 titles. So what does that mean
for the future of PS4 and the dedicated games console? “That’s a legitimate question,”
says SCEE president Jim Ryan. “We will start the PlayStation Now service with PS3 content
on PS4 initially. Then the
service comes to Vita and PS3, then
Bravia televisions and then non-Sony devices. “That makes for a
potentially huge install base with no barrier to entry. It’s fair to question the role of the console. “But while it is a very seductive vision, this is something that is difficult to execute on its own. There are environmental factors beyond our control. Broadband speeds and infrastructures that need to be properly thought through very carefully, business models need to be thought through, consumer propositions need to be thought through carefully with existing propositions whether it’s in store or digital. It will take a long time. “The dedicated console does still have a role to play. More importantly if you want a proper Destiny-type gaming experience that is – at least for the foreseeable future – going to be best done on a console that is designed for that purpose.”
TV THINKING
www.mcvuk.com
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