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Then came the Playstation 4, appearing for the first time, and on sale for $399, 399 Euros and £349. No exact date has been given, but it will be before Christmas 2013.
There are more than 140 titles in development, 40 of which are Playstation-exclusives. There are NO restrictions on used games (which drew rapturous applause from the audience in the wake of Microsoft’s actions). Owners of game disc can lend it to a friend, trade it in, sell it on, keep it, eat jam off it… well, don’t do that one.
Sony even made a video about used games to poke fun in the light of how you can't do this with the Xbox One...
Also, PS4 owners don’t have to be connected online to play their games or do any kinds of authentication, again cocking a snook at Microsoft’s processes. Laughs and cheers aplenty came from the Sony CEO’s confirmation that you don’t need to check-in every 24 hours…
A new share button will stream your gaming online, too, and your Playstation Plus membership will carry on over to the PS4, without paying more. A price of less than $5/month gives you discounted games, cloud saves, automatic game updates, early access to beta programs, an instant game collection and immersive online multiplayer.
PS Plus members will also get a free game each month including some titles listed below such as: Don’t Starve, Outlast and Secret Ponchos, during the first year of PS4.
The PS4 looks a lot more sleek than the Xbox One, but before they got to any games, there was chat about a tie-in with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Movies? TV? Yes, Microsoft gave us all that kind of stuff, too, but we want to know about the games!
The service Video Unlimited allows you to rent and own more than 150,000 movies and TV shows. Music Unlimited does the same for 20 million songs. You’ll also get the usual movie streaming services like Netflix. However, there’s a new Live Event Viewer for PPV services.
But THEN we got to the games…
First up was The Order: 1886, a steampunk-style title set in the time of Jack The Ripper. Looks intriguing from what we saw, but it was only a piece of CGI and not in-game footage.
Then came updates of four titles announced in February, starting with Killzone: Shadow Fall. Now THAT is my sort of game! After that, was action-racer Drive Club, followed by Infamous: Second Sun, which basically blew everything out of the water. Finally, Knack, a title which looks more like something for kids. Either way, all apart from Infamous: Second Sun are out at launch, with that one being released in Q1 2014.
The Dark Sorceror was the next footage available to view. This one was CGI only, but made me PMSL! And when you see it, you will see why.
Transistor, released in Q1 2014, is one for the RPG crowd, so not my bag, but still looks has outstanding animation on-the-fly.
Next up came some titles being played as they were described, some titles being intriguing whilst not all being from massive studios, starting with:
- Don’t Starve – an open-ended, randomly-generated adventure where death lurks around every corner
Mercenary Kings – a retro side-scroller that owes a lot to Ikari Warriors.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch – which was just… weird!
Secret Ponchos – a viewed-from-above shooter mixed with spaghetti western
Ray’s The Dead – recruit a zombie army with a view to finding out why they were killed
Outlast – a wonderful-looking first”-person frightfest”
Oddworld: New ‘N’ Tasty – a new version of the original Oddworld game which was released on the PS One.
Galaxy – a side-scrolling open-world space shooter, and I love the look of that one.
We were told all of these are making their PS4 exclusive debut, yet Oddworld: New ‘N’ Tasty is scheduled for Wii U.
Diablo III will be released on both PS3 and PS4 with some Playstation-exclusive items.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.