PlayStation 4 Revealed
posted Saturday Feb 23, 2013 by Scott Ertz
Sony shocked absolutely no one this week by announcing the PlayStation 4 at their PlayStation Meeting 2013 event, announced late last month. There were a couple of oddball theories about the meeting's purpose, but everyone with a brain knew we would see the announcement of the next member of the PS family. So, what do we know? We know one of the first terms used on stage was "prototype hardware" while showing off the garbage-collecting robot game, Knack. At that point we knew we wouldn't see the hardware, but that's okay: we also didn't see the Wii U hardware at announcement. Larry Hyrb, Xbox's Major Nelson, was apparently surprised, tweeting,
Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach
- Larry Hryb (@majornelson) February 21, 2013
As with the Wii U announcement, we did get to see the controller. Similar to the PSVita, the PS4 controller will incorporate a multi-touch pad on the front, plus a light bar used for physical tracking in a room. Of course, motion controls and rumble have been enhanced, but it isn't a PlayStation console without that.
Knowing we wouldn't see any more hardware, it was all about the software. We saw title after title shown off and, while Media Molecule might have flopped pretty hard, everyone else shined. Hit the break for a rundown of some of the most talked about titles.
One of the surprises that wasn't at all surprising was Blizzard. While their appearance there was surprising, the title they announced was coming to console was not: Diablo III. Blizzard has past experience on the console, and perhaps bringing D3 to both the PS3 and PS4 will help make the title successful; wishful thinking, right?
The announcement I was most surprised and excited about was Bungie's new title Destiny. It is certainly surprising considering Bungie started their lives as part of Microsoft Studios and created the biggest Xbox franchise ever, Halo. In fact, they even showed their Master Chief statue as part of their intro video, so obviously it is still a strong part of their corporate culture. That isn't going to stop them from creating a new universe with exciting new gameplay. Check the launch trailer below.
One of my favorite E3 2012 titles, Ubisoft's Watch Dogs, was officially announced to be a PlayStation 4 title. In addition to the announcement, we got to see the game in action some more. The game looks even more intense and exciting than we even thought in June. One of the interesting things we discovered is that one of our friends from the Frag Dolls, PixxelFD, is actually a security camera. Check the last few seconds of the video to see what I mean.
Clearly, in a 2 hour presentation, there were a lot more titles than this that were shown off. Microsoft has a lot to live up to, though if Major Nelson's comment is to be believed, we won't see the Xbox 3 or Xbox 720's announcement until the final hardware is ready. While these are my favorite titles, what were yours? Let us know in the comments.
