Sony quite inarguably won the E3 press conferences today. While each of the press conferences had a strong and plentiful showing of games, it was what was revealed outside of the games that dealt such a massive punch in the gut to console competitor Microsoft. Below you shall find a quick run down of all the news-worthy announcements Sony made. You can find a summary of their press conference here, and the news coming out of Microsoft here.
- First of all, Sony at last revealed the appearance of the PS4.
- God of War 1/2, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Flower, Dead Nation and The Walking Dead will all be coming to PS Vita.
- Sony Entertainment/Sony Pictured pledged to provide an enjoyable and unique experience that utilises their not unimpressive library of non-gaming media. To go with this, Sony’s Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services will be bringing content to the PS4 from launch day.
- Sony announced a plethora of indie games it was helping to bring to the PS4, these included: Don’t Starve, Mercenary Kings, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Ray’s the Dead, Secret Ponchos, Outlast, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee New N’ Tasty, and Galak-Z.
- Sony then took some low shots by announcing that the PS4 would have no used game restrictions (you may trade in, sell to others, lend to others or keep forever) and absolutely no online requirements (for non-online games/uses obviously) or check-ins.
- They then revealed that PlayStation Plus memberships would carry over to the PS4, and would earn subscribers one free PS4 game a month – the first of these will be Driveclub at launch.
- Cloud services would launch in 2014, bringing full PS3 games streaming to PS4, PS3 and Vita consoles.
- Sony did skip over the point that online multiplayer services are now behind the PS Plus paywall.
- …but then announced the price point of the PS4. $399 US / €399 EU / £349 UK / $549 AU (Quite a bit lower than Microsoft’s announced prices this morning). The PS4 will be “out this holiday”.