The upcoming PlayStation 4 could serve as one of your first gateways to 4K video content — just as the PlayStation 3 helped bring Blu-rays to the living room, and the PlayStation 2 did the same with DVDs.

Sony Electronics president and chief operating officer Phil Molyneux (above) hinted that the 4K service would make its way to the PS4 in an interview with the Verge last night. While it’s not exactly a confirmation, we can’t imagine Sony would keep a flagship video service off of its much-hyped new console. Molyneux announced Sony’s intention to create the first 4K distribution service at CES back in January.

4K offers four times the resolution of 1080p HD video, which is currently the highest resolution supported by TVs and Blu-rays today. The technology was one of the stars of CES — likely because the industry seems ready to move on from promoting 3D in the home. Broadcom announced a 4K gateway chip at CES that could make it easy for devices to manage massive 4K data streams.

Sony has already confirmed that the PS4 supports 4K resolution videos and photos, so the announcement doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

What is surprising, though, is how Sony is approaching the service. According to Molyneux, 4K movies will be around 100 gigabytes in size, depending on their length. In comparison, 1080p HD videos streamed via Netflix and iTunes are typically around 4 GB to 8 GB. He told the Verge that huge file sizes and typical broadband speed are “challenges that we have to work through. … We’ve got some very good ideas that will make that a comfortable consumer experience.”

He could be referring to overnight downloads for the 4K movie service, which the PlayStation 3 already offers when downloading large games. But that’s still a significant difference from the instant access consumers are expecting with services like Netflix and iTunes. A 100 GB download could take eight to 12 hours to download, and it could also quickly eat up your ISP’s bandwidth cap. It’s even less convenient than hopping in the car and finding a Redbox kiosk.

Perhaps Sony will come up with some method to alleviate the huge downloads. Molyneux said that work on new compression was in “active progress.” But even then, you’ll likely be looking at files around 50 GB to 70 GB.

I can’t imagine consumers will suffer through such an arduous process to view 4K video, especially when its benefits are difficult to see on TVs smaller than 60- to 80-inches. So not only will you need to buy a new TV to watch 4K content, it’ll also have to be somewhat massive (unless you opt for a projector setup). That’s why Samsung is so focused on its 85-inch and 110-inch 4K TV sets.

4K content certainly looks great, from what I’ve seen. But given that most people can’t even see the difference between 720p HD and 1080p on typical TV sets, 4K seems destined to be ignored by consumers. The headache around Sony’s 4K service certainly won’t help.

Photo: Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat

Making a modern triple-A video game is a massive undertaking — just ask Ubisoft.

It took six Ubisoft teams to make Assassin’s Creed III. The company spreads out development for its big games because it’s not viable to produce something so massive at one studio. That’s because, according to Ubisoft Reflections managing director Pauline Jacquey, it takes hundreds of people to make a triple-A title.

“‘There are games that Ubisoft specializes in, like open-world action games, with a lot of production value, and you need a team of 400 to 600 people,” Jacquey told Games Industry International in an interview. “That’s a lot, and the next-gen is increasing this.”

Jacquey goes on to say that not all games require such massive teams. Some games only require 100 people, but a next-gen console like the PlayStation 4, with all of its extra capabilities, adds to the amount of work.

“For the new PS4 console, you need teams of up to 600 guys so you can’t do it at just one site,” said Jacquey to Games Industry International. “So there’s organization within Ubisoft to make sure that collaboration happens and works.”

Ubisoft has teams all over the globe. For the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed III, Ubisoft Montreal led development, Ubisoft Kiev/Ubisoft Romania ported the game to Windows, Ubisoft Annecy designed the multiplayer, Ubisoft Singapore led development on the naval combat, and Ubisoft Quebec handled the Wii U port.

It’s a lot of effort and overhead, which increases the financial risk.

“Ubisoft is very generous with resources, making sure product quality is top notch,” said Jacquey to GI. “But then the outcome, the production revenue, should be much higher as well so it balances. It’s just the risk is higher, so if we miss it once or twice the impact is big.”

Big hits drive revenue in the games industry, but this certainly seems like a precarious position for Ubisoft to put itself in. If one of these juggernaut games flops, the publisher could take a huge loss. At the same time, gamers crave these immersive experiences, so the money is apparently there for any company that can capitalize on this craving.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Lead system architect Mark Cerny announces the design principles for PlayStation 4 at Sony’s kickoff event last week in New York City.

Jussi Laakkonen is the founder and CEO of Applifier.

The console war of today is no longer a battle between just Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. It’s expanded and is now a fight for hundreds of millions of players and tens of billions in global revenue across all screens: from smartphones and tablets to the PC and the living room. The iPad alone should blow past 200 million units sold in just three and a half years. Compare this with the PlayStation 2. It was Sony’s biggest hit, and it managed to sell 150 million units in 12 years.

Console manufactures are in a dire competition with smartphones and tablets, and Sony has clearly realized this. The PlayStation 4 announcement bedazzled the gamers and press worldwide, but not many noticed that the PS4 design principles “Simple, Immediate, Social, Integrated, and Personalized” have a common underlying theme.

Let’s make it like a tablet.

Simple: Consumer-oriented functionality, ease of use. Sony is looking to copy tablet-like user experiences. Can anything drive that point home better than using an image of a tablet at the PS4 launch event?

Immediate: PS4 brings a low-power standby state that you can resume games from and the capability to update games in the background. This is something we have had on smartphones and tablets for ages. Making games playable rapidly without waiting for the full download to complete is cool, but this is standard for mobile game, where you grab the first 50MBs of the game, get going, and it adds in content from the servers on the fly.

Social: Always-on hardware video encoding/decoding for live video streaming, a share button on the controller to share screenshots and video replays across Playstation Network, web and Facebook. Share your live video stream and spectate friends’ or celebrities’ gameplay. These are really cool features and will make playing on PlayStation 4 a lot more social. Yet you can get all of it already on mobile phones and tablets. Similar video hardware has shipped in hundreds of millions of iOS devices. My own startup, Everyplay, is powering easy video sharing for mobile players. Other mobile startups are innovating at break-neck speed to build rich social features. Once the pioneer, but now-shuttered Openfeint, provided GameFeeds similar to PS4’s planned features. Heyzap is building gamer profiles and multiplayer functions. Industry giants DeNA and Gree have both built gamer-oriented social networks. PlayStation 4 is doing the right thing bringing these features together as a platform standard, but a walled garden like the PlayStation 4 will always be playing catch-up to the innovations of an open ecosystem like iOS and Android.

Integrated: Connecting to third-party devices and services. Watching PlayStation 4 game replays on a smartphone or on Facebook. It’s great to see Sony opening up and connecting the PlayStation to third-party services and devices like smartphones. Unfortunately, every integration will have to go through Sony’s rigorous approval process, so don’t expect rapid support for Tumblr, Pinterest, or “name your favorite new social network” here. Although a very welcome feature, this is just table stakes in 2013.

Personalized Social feeds of gameplaying, real-world identity, connect with your Facebook friends, get recommendations based on what kind of games you like and dislike. Gamers can expect a built-in “Facebook for games” focused on rich media like video streams. PlayStation 4 will have players hanging out together and talking about their gaming experiences. Mobile offerings like Mobage from DeNA, Playphone’s social platform and Gree’s platform are all attempting to build similar, fully fledged gaming networks while focused services like Facebook’s App Center for game recommendations and Everyplay for game replays provide solutions for individual gamer needs. Recommendations and social proof of what friends play will do a lot to improve discoverability in the PlayStation Store. Sony’s taken what works on social and refined it to make it their own.

Good job, Sony, but the gaming revolution isn’t being televised

I’ve worked on console, social and mobile gaming. My first console was a PlayStation 2, and I’ve got a soft spot for Sony. They get games. PlayStation 4 seems to have the performance edge over the specs leaked about the so-called Xbox 720. It’s clear from the PS4 launch that Sony is serious about getting on with the times and is looking at how people play today on mobile and bringing that experience to the PS4.

Still, the gaming revolution is not being televised. The plastic boxes sitting below TVs led the gaming industry’s growth for nearly two decades, but now the big screen is fading just as the mobile screens are exploding. While Sony may, if lucky, get to 100 million PS4 units sold in the next 10 years, I expect the tablet user base to crack a billion in less than five years as tablets replace PCs. It has taken less than six years for smartphones to blow past that magical billion units, and all signs point to tablet shipments accelerating faster than smartphones.

Sony. I like what you do. Guess we both agree that the future of gaming is in mobile.

Jussi Laakkonen is the founder and CEO of Applifier and has spent the last few years in helping small and medium-sized game developers grow their games. As the leader of what the press dubbed “the rebel alliance,” Jussi rallied Facebook game developers together with the original cross-promotion network and grew it to reach over 150 million monthly active users. Jussi & Applifier are now focused on building authentic social discovery for mobile games with Everyplay, which lets players share their most memorable game replays with friends and fans. You’ll find him tweeting from @jussil about games and entrepreneurship.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Electronic Arts is finally talking about the PlayStation 4 and the next-generation of home gaming systems. And the short version of chief technology officer Rajat Taneja’s conversation on a call with investors today? “OMG SO MANY RAM,” or at least that’s what it sounded like to my dimwitted brain.

“At EA we’ve never been more ready for the start of a new console cycle,” said Taneja. “The console itself is a giant leap for our industry. If you look at it on an aggregate basis, the new consoles are between eight and 10 times more powerful than the current generation. We no longer have to constrain our games or ration memory.”

Later in the call, EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said that he’s seen Battlefield 4, and that it looks stunning. So we can expect a major visual overall from EA, but the Taneja is also excited about Sony’s new dedication to socializing traditional gaming with the “Share” button.

“The connected sharing capabilities of the new console fits directly with our strategy,” said Taneja. “It’s part of the trends of that we’ve been embracing of multiplayer gaming, connected gaming, and social gaming. This helps us accelerate those features in our games.”

For those that don’t know (and you can get fully caught up on the PlayStation 4 here), Sony’s new PS4 controller features a button called Share that players use to quickly broadcast livestreaming gameplay videos. Gamers can also use this feature to cut together a highlight reel based on recent in-game actions. The PS4 is always recording and saves up to the last 15 minutes of gameplay.

EA was already looking into similar features for its popular first-person shooter series Battlefield and soccer franchise FIFA, but Taneja says the publisher is happy to have such an elegant solution built into Sony’s new hardware.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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At its PlayStation 4 event last week 20 in New York City, Sony Computer Entertainment showed off a number of games from a handful of first- and third-party developers. Publishing giant Electronic Arts, however, was notably absent from the event.

During an investor call today, EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said that EA skipping the Sony event doesn’t indicate that its games aren’t ready for PlayStation 4 this year.

“It was more about timing of our own slate as well as trying to maintain a good balance of power with all the parties out there,” said Jorgensen.

The only other possible party “out there” is Microsoft. EA may prefer to introduce its first next-gen games along with the so-called “Xbox 720.”

“Between now and E3, you’re going to see a lot of stuff from us,” said Jorgensen. “We’ll just choose [on our own] marketing cadence when to start to announce stuff.”

If EA plans to announce games for the new systems before E3, it’s a safe bet that it could make an appearance on stage at Microsoft’s rumored event in April.

“At the end of the day, we’re very excited about Sony’s new platform,” said Jorgensen. “We feel it’s a great opportunity. As [chief technology officer Rajat Taneja] said, the technical power of the system is going to allow us to do a substantial number of things that we’ve never been able to do before. I’ve seen the new Battlefield, and it’s just stunning.”

EA plans to debut Battlefield 4 this fall for PC and the major home consoles.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sony is putting the pieces into place for the launch of its next-generation PlayStation 4 home video game console.

Sony Computer Entertainment America announced today that Carat Media will now manage the PlayStation company’s media strategy going forward. Carat Media will design how the company will market its products and will handle the buying of advertising spots on television, on the web, and elsewhere.

“All of the participating agencies presented outstanding approaches during the selection process,” SCEA senior vice president of PlayStation brand marketing Guy Longworth said in a statement. “Carat presented an innovative model that will drive significant marketing value to SCEA, and we look forward to partnering with them.”

Carat recently signed to work with automotive giant GM and retailer Macy’s. The firm will work with SCEA’s new advertising agency BBH New York, which will create the actual ads.

“We are thrilled to be able to redefine the value of PlayStation’s media, especially at this incredible moment in time for the brand,” Carat Global president Doug Ray said.

Previously, advertising firm Deutsch handled both the ad creation and media management for SCEA.

Sony plans to launch the PlayStation 4, which it introduced last week, during this year’s holiday season.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I met Pete Parsons before Halo came out, as he was going around the country evangelizing the first-person shooter on the Xbox game console that Microsoft was about to launch way back in the fall of 2001. I recall his enthusiasm as marketing director at Microsoft, always promoting the idea of doing a pioneering shooting experience on consoles that, frankly, were inferior to the PC. Now, Parsons is still doing the same thing, only he is promoting Destiny, the next shooter from developer Bungie.

As chief operating officer at Bungie, Parsons must help lead the 350-person team do the enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work in bringing the persistent world of the always-connected Destiny to life. Activision Blizzard is planning on publishing a series of Destiny titles over the next decade, and Parsons will play a big role in making that happen.

Parsons left his job at Microsoft to become the COO at Bungie after Halo launched. In 2007, he left Microsoft to start Meteor Solutions, a viral-marketing startup, and worked double duty for a time. As Bungie prepared to leave the Microsoft fold and move on to a new franchise, Parsons came back. He returned to the studio in 2010. Parsons is now fully focused on getting Destiny out the door and managing the culture and talent inside Bungie’s 80,000-square-foot headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.

After a few years of secrecy, Bungie finally revealed concept art from its new game universe while announcing that Destiny would debut on the PlayStation 4 (and likely other platforms). We visited Parsons at Bungie HQ last week, and here’s an edited transcript of our conversation.

GamesBeat: You must feel good right now.

Pete Parsons: [Laughs] Well, I think it feels good to be Bungie right now. We’re always about doing great things and ambitious things. That’s because we have such a great team, because we can do that. It’s a great time to be at Bungie. It’s an energy that many people haven’t felt since some of the earliest days of Halo. That’s exciting. We still have a lot of the old guard around, but we’ve been able to bring on a massive amount of new talent.

GamesBeat: Did somebody in particular sell you on the idea of Destiny? I think you came in after it started, right?

Parsons: No, we’ve all been working from the very beginning. Well, it depends on how you look at it. Destiny has been an idea bouncing around since even before the technology to make it existed.

Destiny is very much a product of everybody at Bungie, but its inception comes from Jason [Jones, co-founder of Bungie]. This is very much a vision that Jason has. Then, he gathers a small group of really talented people who have been here a long time, and they begin hammering on it. It’s had multiple incarnations until it finally landed into what it is today. That’s fun to watch. Not just on technology, but art and story.

GamesBeat: It sounds like you did have options, though. Was there a point where you bought into Destiny and said, “I want to do this too?” For 10 years or whatever it will be.

Parsons: As naïve as this may sound, if Jason believes in something and he’s ready to go for it, I’m in. No joke, I still walk in the door every day and think, “Who gets to do this? This is awesome, to be a part of this thing.” Even when I’m having a shitty day, I feel that way. There are so many other things I could do that, for me, wouldn’t be as satisfying or as interesting. They might be enriching. They might satisfy some level of my curiosity. They might be exciting. But there’s something about these people and this place.

GamesBeat: Did you feel any tug when Halo went off in another direction, with Microsoft’s 343 Industries, and then Bungie went its separate way with Destiny?

Parsons: Personally, I did not. I love the Halo universe. I think it’s great. It inspires me. It inspires my children. They’ve never played, but they know the universe. One, though, I’ve spent a lot of time with Halo. Two, the mythic science fiction of Destiny immediately attracted me. It was that first image … It’s a simple image, but it took weeks of back-and-forth to put together. There were a few images already, maybe three or four, but they didn’t speak to what it was. The moment that image was done, it was like, “That’s it.” That’s the game. That’s the idea. That’s a place that I want to be.

GamesBeat: Is that published now? Which image is that?

Parsons: I don’t know if it’s ever been published. It was just this very striking image that had that feeling of — this is not purely a science fiction universe. It’s not just about two big military-industrial complexes smashing into each other. It’s a place with myths and lore. There’s a guy with sci-fi armor on, and yet he’s got a rifle that looks like it’s from an ancient desert somewhere. It was super cool. That certainly spoke to me. I didn’t look back.

At the time, we were working on both Halo: ODST and Halo:Reach. I still love the Halo universe. It’s an interesting place. But I think what we’ve been able to do is create an incredibly deep fiction and a place that you’re going to want to be in.

GamesBeat: You had a leak. You had some interesting reactions. What was it like, looking at the reaction from the inside?

Parsons: You’re never really excited when you first learn that a leak happens. Then you get to see the reaction. We had this really quick thing. We said, “There’s a leak happening. We can either say nothing, or we can say, ‘Yeah.’” Instead of looking at images that we didn’t want you to see, let’s give you one that we want you to see. So, we released the picture of the Fallen. When our community, who we love, reacts so positively to an image — “Oh my God. That’s so great. That’s a place I want to be in. I can’t wait to learn more about that” — we go from, “Oh, man” to “Sweet!” Within less than half an hour, we were like, “This is the course of action. Let’s go.”

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The Electronic Entertainment Expo is approaching fast, but it’s starting to look like Microsoft may introduce the next Xbox home game console up to two months before that gaming trade show.

Rumors reported by several websites claim that Microsoft will hold an Xbox event in April. CVG and The Verge both have sources who claim the company will introduce the new console that month. GamesBeat spoke with a source in the wake of Sony’s PlayStation 4 event that made a similar claim.

Separately, a poster on the popular gaming message board NeoGAF uncovered a URL registration for XboxEvent.com. Eventcore, an event-management firm that has worked with Microsoft previously, filed for that URL as well as XboxE312.com (Xbox E3 2012).

Sony just demonstrated why it is so important to hold a separate event to announce a new console. The PlayStation 4 owned a majority share of the news coverage this week in the gaming media, and it attracted a great deal of attention from mainstream sources as well (including appearing on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show). If both companies waited until E3, most of the discussion would focus on which had the better presentation. Microsoft wants to avoid that, so don’t let it surprise you if Microsoft announces the event soon.

And unlike the PS4, expect the next Xbox to actually show up to the event based on this Tweet from Microsoft’s Major Nelson:

Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach—
Larry Hryb (@majornelson) February 21, 2013

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Jimmy Fallon has an awesome gig. Sometimes he plays major video games before the rest of us. Unfortunately, when he plays poorly, it’s on live TV. The Late Night host and guest Anthony Anderson got their hands on the PlayStation 4 and Killzone: Shadow Fall, as shown on Late Night‘s YouTube channel.

Guerrilla Games managing director Hermen Hulst and Steven Ter Heide, game director for Killzone, showed off the game. The demo was the same one shown at the press conference, and it ended with a flying sequence. The only real difference we saw was Fallon and Anderson shooting floors and ceilings while screaming at the screen.

They didn’t share any new information, and they didn’t show the console. Fallon asked for a release date, and Hulst gave the same answer as Sony: “Holiday 2013.”

Watch the full video below.

[via Engadget]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Sony unveils it’s latest home console the PlayStation 4, Ziff Davis Media shuts down 1Up, UGO, and GameSpy, and Electronic Arts and Activision both lay off workers.

You’ll also find reviews for Crysis 3, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Serious Sam Double D XXL.

PlayStation 4

• The DeanBeat: Sorting through the significance of Sony’s PlayStation 4 revelation
• The biggest PlayStation 4 disappointments
• Grading the PlayStation 4 rumors
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is officially a next-gen title for PlayStation 4
• PlayStation 4: Sony impresses analysts — but others are not convinced the next Xbox won’t overshadow it
• Sony ‘not ready to talk about’ The Last Guardian — waiting for the ‘right time’
• Sony’s Shu Yoshida talks PlayStation 4: PS3/PSN compatibility, microtransactions, and more
• PlayStation 4: Reactions from around the Internet
• Used games will work on the PlayStation 4, says Sony
• Everything you need to know about the PlayStation 4 (so far)
• GamesBeat’s complete coverage of Sony’s PlayStation 4 announcement
• Here’s what a chip expert says about the PlayStation 4′s potential
• Ubisoft announces Watch Dogs for the PlayStation 4
• Blizzard announces Diablo III for PlayStation 4 (and PS3)
• Indie darling Jonathan Blow’s The Witness is headed to the PlayStation 4
• Sucker Punch reveals Infamous: Second Son as a PlayStation 4 exclusive
• Sony’s Evolution Studios reveals social racing Drive Club for PlayStation 4
• PlayStation Cloud streaming tech the ‘fastest gaming network in the world’ — and promises PS4 games on Vita
• Sony unveils Killzone: Shadow Fall for the PlayStation 4
• Knack is the first game confirmed for the PlayStation 4 (and it looks like a Pixar movie)
• Sony finally reveals the PlayStation 4 for holiday 2013 — but not the console or price
• A play-by-play of Sony’s big PlayStation 4 reveal

News

• Nevada governor signs online gambling bill into law
• More layoffs: Electronic Arts cuts jobs in L.A. and Montreal
• After buying IGN, Ziff Davis is shutting down UGO, 1UP, and GameSpy
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Monster Hunter, F-Zero, and Etrian Odyssey
• That PlayStation Vita price cut isn’t coming to North America
• King.com localizing 2 of its hugely popular free-to-play games for Japan and Korea
• Thanks for the #PlayStationMemories: The industry tweets Sony’s legacy
• Hey, devs, PaeDae’s Bartr turns advertising into a free service
• 2K Sports is the new publisher of WWE wrestling games — Yuke’s returns to develop
• New Torment game from developer InXile gets a subtitle and official webpage
• Total U.S. game market grew 39 percent in January if you count all segments
• What we can learn from past PlayStation reveals
• PlayStation Meeting: Six disappointing scenarios that aren’t PlayStation 4
• House GOP majority leader Eric Cantor calls publicly funded research into video games a ‘waste’
• Cmune raises funding for first-person shooters on mobile and Facebook
• Ubisoft releasing Rayman Legend’s online challenge mode on Wii U eShop for free this April
• Activision cuts around 30 jobs — expect fewer licensed games for 2013
• Poker Smash developer asking for $7.5K on Kickstarter to release PC version
• Agawi reveals new True Cloud gaming architecture
• Ubisoft welcomes third-party games on its Uplay digital distribution portal
• Fresh Gears of War: Judgment video details the game’s multiplayer modes
• Hotline Miami headed to PlayStation 3 and Vita this spring
• Irrational teases the powerful abilities of BioShock Infinite’s Elizabeth
• Tilera unveils 72-core processor chip for data networks and infrastructure
• Ascension developers might not need all 10 days of this gutsy Kickstarter
• Half the Sky Facebook game to create awareness about sex slave trafficking
• Farewell, rhythm genre: Rock Band downloadable content comes to an end in April
• Sony whacks the price of the PlayStation Vita in Japan
• Destiny revealed: The creators of Halo unveil their newest game
• Analyst: Wii U a ‘mistake’ for Nintendo — what the company needs to do to recover

Mobile News

• 2012 a very good year for casual game developer Wooga: It’s finally profitable
• Dedicated handheld consoles took a beating from iOS and Android during Q4 2012
• User acquisition may not be sexy, but it’s critical in mobile games (part 2)
• Shufflepix creator goes from zero to published iOS game in nine months
• Nvidia announces Tegra 4i with integrated LTE, enabling awesome smartphones
• User acquisition may not be sexy, but it’s critical in mobile games (part 1)

Reviews

• Crysis 3 is a thrilling hunt through the ravaged streets of New York (review)
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance unsheathes an action-packed, yet imperfect, experience (review)
• Serious Sam Double D XXL is an old-school concept full of newfangled ideas (review)

Pieces of Flair

• Aliens, Prometheus, and even Spaceballs: Spot the references in Colonial Marines
• If Luigi had a dating site profile
• This 13-year-old boy runs his own mobile game startup
• 20 Dead Space 3 details you may have missed (gallery)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I hope you saved your many PlayStation Move controllers, because the motion device is compatible with the PlayStation 4. At the same time, you can throw your DualShock 3 pads into a drawer, because the next-gen console has no use for them.

Yesterday, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that the PlayStation 3 controllers will not work with the company’s next system, according to IGN. The PlayStation 4 comes with a DualShock 4, which features a touchpad, a Move-like light on the top, and the capability to sense motion on six different axes.

The PS4 is also without native backward compatibility with the PS3, which means Sony would have to manually add support for the older DualShock 3. It’s not going to do that … except for the Move wands.

It’s clear that Sony wants to continue with the same basic technology for its motion-controlled games, but many more people own DualShock 3s than Move controllers. It would have been a friendly move toward consumers to make the aging gamepad work in some multiplayer games.

Nintendo does this with its Wii controllers, which still work on the Wii U. Although, that console doesn’t really support multiple Wii U GamePads, so it is a slightly different situation.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow all of our PlayStation 4 announcement news.

Sony had trouble keeping many of its secrets in the weeks leading to the PlayStation 4 reveal. Yesterday, the company announced its next-generation video game console at a press conference in New York. Now that it’s official, most of the speculation will end.

How accurate were the rumors? Let’s examine what we know with what the rumors said.

We will see the console

This wasn’t so much of a rumor as it was an assumption. With a new console announcement comes a new console, or that’s what we thought. Sony isn’t ready to show us the box itself, so the only hardware it showed was the new controller and the PlayStation 4 Eye camera.

Verdict: Wrong

Sony will kill used games

Perhaps one of the biggest rumors surrounding the PS4 was that the system will not play used games. This caused a lot of anger. Basically, a segment of the Internet was upset about a rumor about a rumored machine. Yes, a rumor of a rumor. Sony Worldwide Studios’ president Shuhei Yoshida put this rumbling to an end. The PS4 will allow you to play used games.

Verdict: Wrong.

The PS4 will launch in November

Sony didn’t announce a release date for the PS4 other than “Holiday 2013.” According to rumors, the console is set to launch in November. Unfortunately, it’s not November yet, and Sony didn’t tell us when it will release it. Sony may be ready to share a release date during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June, the game industry trade show in Los Angeles.

Verdict: Uncertain

We won’t hear a price for the PS4

Sony didn’t announce a price. We didn’t expect one. Despite being hopeful, expectations had to be realistic. Sony probably hasn’t decided on a price yet. Maybe the company wants to gauge consumer interest or hopes that Microsoft announces the next Xbox and a price first.

Verdict: Correct

Gaikai’s technology will stream games on the PS4

The Wall Street Journal ran a story claiming that the PS4 will stream games thanks to Gaikai technology. Gaikai CEO Dave Perry announced the streaming service and said that it will stream games instantly. Think Netflix for PlayStation games.

Verdict: Correct

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This marks the first time the action role-playing series will be available as a PlayStation title. The announcement follows yesterday’s big reveal of Sony’s new console in New York.

CD Projekt RED studio head Adam Badowski said his team was thrilled when it was asked to be one of the developers granted early access to the PlayStation 4 several months ago. ”It was an exciting moment to be invited to be in the company of other legendary developers like  Bethesda, EA, LucasArts, Ubisoft, or Activision as one of the teams working on titles shipping early in the PlayStation 4′s lifecycle,” he says. “Of course, we couldn’t reveal any specifics about this to our fans, even though many journalists and forum members asked about when and how The Witcher might show up on Sony’s console. After yesterday’s PlayStation Meeting we can finally promise: The Witcher 3 is coming to the PlayStation 4.”

Although it’s the last installment of the series, CD Projekt RED says The Wild Hunt is a standalone story. It’s being designed on a newly built graphics engine called REDengine 3, which the developer claims will push the graphical limits of what the PlayStation hardware can display.

Although there is no firm release date, CD Projekt RED says The Witcher 3 will launch simultaneously on all high-end platforms in 2014.

(Image courtesy: Game Informer)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Yesterday, Sony introduced the world to its newest home video game console, the PlayStation 4. We’ve already shown you how the Internet reacted to the new games, the new controller, and its social features, but now let’s talk to some expert witnesses.

Overall, video game industry analysts seem pleased with PlayStation 4, although a few had some issues with how the Japanese publisher and developer introduced it.

“Sony is taking their next-generation platform in the proper direction,” EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich told GamesBeat. “Judging by [yesterday's] presentation, Sony is putting a strong focus on game content and connectivity, which is the lifeblood of any platform.”

The other experts I spoke with echoed Dvnich’s take on the PlayStaiton 4, but IDC research manager Lewis Ward found it disappointing that Sony didn’t show the physical console.

“I think that the hardware is pretty impressive, but I wish I had seen the box itself,” Ward told GamesBeat. “Maybe I’m just old school in that I think the design characteristics matter.”

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter agreed with Ward.

“I think form factor matters to people,” Pachter told GamesBeat after the Sony event. “People care about what the box looks like.”

But the box is just a box. In gaming, beauty is on the inside, and everyone agreed that the PlayStation 4 has the guts to push some fine-looking polygons.

Baird analyst Colin Sebastian thinks the new hardware, with its superpowered gaming capabilities, will drive interest among hardcore gamers.

“We think core gamers will be excited by the hardware upgrade,” said Sebastian. “Notably, Sony is abandoning its proprietary Cell chip solution [which it used on the PS3]. Overall we view the return to less proprietary technology as positive; as the PS4 will leverage the cost and performance improvements that the high-volume PC industry enables.”

PS4′s new PC-like architecture should streamline development, which should also keep costs down. It doesn’t separate the PS4 from any other console, but this aspect of its design will help it keep up with Steam and anything Microsoft unveils.

Speaking of Microsoft, Ward was quick to temper expectations for Sony’s new console based on the recent history of the Xbox 360.

“If Sony wants to regain its former glory in gaming, they’re going to have to convince [Xbox 360 gamers] to switch back over,” said Ward. “I did not see a compelling reason for Xbox 360 fans to do that.”

Sony introduced a lot of new features in the PlayStation 4. It has motion controls, cloud-streaming of games, and live video broadcasting through social networks, but these are all concepts that Microsoft could easily duplicate.

“I’m not sure that Sony convinced me that it has anything so [different] with the PS4 that [Microsoft would struggle] to respond to,” said Ward.

It all comes down to execution. If PlayStation 4 executes its features better than Microsoft does with the next Xbox, gamers will notice. More than 10 percent of Sony’s revenue comes from the PlayStation division, so the company has a lot on the line. It’s going to make an effort, but it needs to deliver on the promises it made today.

The good news for Sony is that it seems to have a clear vision for the future and most gamers and analysts are ready to give the PlayStation 4 a shot based on what it’s shown so far.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow all of our PlayStation 4 announcement news here.

Sony overloaded us with information about the PlayStation 4 video game console that it announced last night, but many questions still remain.

This morning the Japanese publisher of games and hardware trotted out (a very tired) Shuhei Yoshida, the president of Sony Worldwide Studios, to clear up some of those questions in a roundtable with journalists. We still don’t have all the answers, but we’re definitely beginning to see how Sony aims to innovate in the console world and avoid some of the mistakes it made with the PlayStation 3.

The discussion covered many different aspects of the PlayStation 4, but let’s start with the questions we were able to ask Yoshida.

GamesBeat: Will we see streaming company Gaikai’s cloud services on the PlayStation 3 as well? It should technically be able to run on any device.

Shuhei Yoshida: That’s the vision. That’s what [Gaikai CEO] David Perry said. In the future the ultimate goal is everything everywhere. … So when we say everywhere, like every device, including the smartphones, TVs … refrigerators [Laughs] … that’s our goal. But we have to phase services step-by-step.

GB: Following up on the PS4′s social capabilities, will we see things like microtransactions and free-to-play games that are so common in social gaming?

Yoshida: I totally expect many games to show up on PS4 that are free-to-play or will have microtransactions or subscriptions, many different kind of things that are happening on different devices. These things will just work. I’m a big fan of some of these games as well.

Now for other topics discussed during the roundtable:

Will downloadable PlayStation 3 PSN games work on the PS4?

Yoshida confirmed that the PS4 does not have hardware-based backward compatibility for both downloadable and disc-based P3 games. But he added, “Unless, somehow, some games work on emulation. The easiest thing technically would be to make PS1 games work on PS4 with emulation, but we are not talking about our emulation plans as yet.”

When it comes to transferring other PSN purchases to the PS4, Yoshida said, “We could do it if we choose to; we know who’s bought what. But we haven’t decided yet.”

Yoshida also mentioned cloud support as one way for enabling older titles on the PS4, but he wasn’t ready to announce anything yet.

GamesBeat: Is The Last Guardian still a PS3 title?

Yoshida: I’m not ready to talk about that … sorry. We’ve broken promises. we are waiting for the right to time reintroduce The Last Guardian. I’m not going to say anything beyond what [The Last Guardian lead designer Fumito] Ueda said.

GamesBeat: Will Gaikai streaming on the PlayStation Vita handheld work with all launch games?

Yoshida: I’d be heartbroken if it doesn’t on day one. … My expectation is we have to have all games work on PS Vita, unless it’s like a camera-only game.

GamesBeat: The PS4 announcement event felt a lot more Western than the PS3 launch. Is this a change of direction for Sony?

Yoshida: Who is the president? Andy [Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment] is not Japanese. I’m Japanese, but I spend a lot of time in the U.S. When  you look at how SCE as a company is resourced, there are lots of hardware engineers in Japan, but outside of Japan, there are lots of software engineers resources, some R&D studios. Gaikai is here, so more and more development is done outside Japan.

GamesBeat: Any plans for PS Vita bundles with the PS4 in the future?

Yoshida: Personally, I’d like to see that … for some retailers create some nice bundles. But I think it’s way too early to talk about the final package, what’s in the box now, and much it costs.

GamesBeat: Is 3D still a focus for the PlayStation 4?

Yoshida: It’s not a focus, but it [PS4] does do it, and it does it better. So more games will run at 1080p and 60fps, so it’s an easier, better experience when you watch them on a 3D TV. … 3D was a big thing a couple years  ago. We made it a big thing, because it was led by the consumer electronics side of Sony. … But now the consumer electronics side of Sony, all the company’s have shifted from 3DTV to something else. So, they’re not talking about it.

Why would we?

GamesBeat: Is the audience ready for a console with more social features rather than one in which the graphics are significantly better than the previous generation?

Yoshida: The simplest answer is we want both [types of consumers]. People like [Quantic Dream's] Davig Cage, for him the high performance is very important because what he wants to do is make the digital character like a human being, so you can fall in love, get scared, feel sorry for them. Depending on the developer, performance is very important. Really want to help realize that on PS4 as well.

And some consumers are really socially addicted like myself, for those people it’s really important to share what they’re doing. … So that’s a big focus.

Photo: Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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You can read all of our PlayStation 4 coverage here.

It’s real. The PlayStation 4 is no longer a rumor even if we don’t know what it looks like. Sony’s decision to announce a new console four months before the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), a game industry trade show that takes place in Los Angeles every June, means that the PS4 gets the gaming public’s full attention. It’s not competing for the spotlight against rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.

Gamers were watching closely. GamesBeat gathered a handful of reactions from Twitter and popular gaming forum NeoGAF to gauge the Internet response to “Panty Raid” engines and Square Enix’s uneventful announcement, among other points of interest.

NeoGAF didn’t seem impressed with Knack:

Sony didn’t show off the console, and fake Kaz Hirai, a parody Twitter account of the president and CEO of the Sony Corporation, has something to say about that:

I am proud to announce the PS4 is the worlds first invisible game console!—
CEO Kaz Hirai (@KazHiraiCEO) February 21, 2013

In the minutes leading up to the event, fans were tweeting about their expectations:

I'm expecting lots of Vidya games and 599 US Dollars. #PS4—
Hector Ascencio (@Doc703) February 20, 2013

I thought it would be appropriate to watch the PS4 launch on the PS3 but that doesn't seem to be possible. Who's the idiot – me or Sony?—
Tom Parsons (@TomParsons) February 20, 2013

Mark Rein, the vice president and co-founder of Epic Games, which develops Gears of War and the Unreal Engine:

Unreal Engine 4 powers the first-ever real time public demo of PlayStation 4! Very proud! #MadeWithUE4 #PS4 @UnrealEngine—
Mark Rein (@MarkRein) February 20, 2013

Cliff Bleszinski, formerly of Epic Games, wanted to see more new franchises:

As a lover of new IP I'm a bit bummed by the lack of it from the ps4 news.—
Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) February 21, 2013

Nick Chester, the publicist at Harmonix:

They're going to show the PS3 Killzone 2 demo, but it'll actually be the game this time!—
Nick Chester (@nickchester) February 20, 2013

The fanboys didn’t waste any time bashing the PlayStation 4:

This is going to be shit #ps4 #playstation #teamxbox instagr.am/p/V-AfxRvmtu/—
MrNoDaysOff (@Kieroncampbell) February 20, 2013

PS4 is for scrubs. #teamxbox—
Ahmed (@ahmedhanif4) February 21, 2013

PS4 looks dead loooooooooool they're just showing new games not what the console does #LeaveIt #TeamXbox—
Saheel Ibn Ilyas (@SaheelPatel) February 21, 2013

Ps4 just got announced. Not going to be that great #teamxbox—
Hunter Kemp (@Kunter_Hemp47) February 21, 2013

Xbox 720>PlayStation 4 Will always stay true to myself #Xbox #Microsoft #TeamXbox—
Ben Roberts (@BenRob7) February 21, 2013

Publisher and developer Square Enix’s massive non-announcement received some criticism:

Da fuck just happen? #playstation2013 #SquareEnix—
  (@tryfe) February 21, 2013

So to sum up, Watch Dogs and Capcom stole the show, Square Enix just embarrassed themselves.—
David Amador (@DJ_Link) February 21, 2013

Square-Enix understands that it's only graphics that make great games, not gameplay.—
Tyrone Rodriguez (@tyronerodriguez) February 21, 2013

square enix showed a tech demo and had a guy say "please be excited for new Final Fantasy". nice job at your job—
garbage boy (@bugbucket) February 21, 2013

Ever have a dream where you were at a final you hadn't studied for? That just happened to Square-Enix in real life. #playstation2013—
Dorkly (@dorkly) February 21, 2013

Street Fighter maker Capcom’s non-announcement and the Panta Rhei (Panty Raid) Engine:

Did capcom just announce the Panty Raid engine? #capcom—
Egg Fou (@eggfou) February 21, 2013

I like the scary music accompanying the Capcom representative. #playstationstream—
LittleKuriboh (@yugiohtas) February 21, 2013

Capcom's Panty Raid engine is impressive.—
Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) February 21, 2013

Panta Rhei sounds like cake #ps4 I hope its delicious—
Laura Shiraishi (@chibilola) February 21, 2013

Panty Raid Engine might be the closest this generation gets to "Riiiidge raaacer!". I'm ok with that. #PS4—
Megan Fox (@glassbottommeg) February 21, 2013

Codename Panty Raid—
Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) February 21, 2013

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Yesterday, Sony revealed its next-generation console, the PlayStation 4, using its conference in New York to act preemptively before its major competitor, Microsoft, could make a move. But fans are left with some unanswered questions, such as whether the future has room for used games.

Apparently, it does — at least on the PS4. Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer that it won’t prevent the use of second-hand games despite concerns that it would.

“That’s the general expectation by consumers,” said Yoshida. “They purchase physical form, they want to use it everywhere, right? So that’s my expectation.”

Yoshida and his Japanese PR adviser were a little unclear, though, when responding to whether Sony would stop someone from reselling one of its games. But Yoshida eventually said, “So, used games can play on PS4. How is that?”

That’s fine by us.

Part of the anxiety over whether used games would be playable on Sony’s next-gen console came from the discovery of an anti-used-games patent last month, but Eurogamer reports that a Sony source has denied that it has anything to do with the PlayStation 4. The alleged patent would brand discs with a tag that would bind them to only one console each. Gamers wouldn’t be able to resell their copy because the disc wouldn’t operate on another system.

A similar suspicion has been raised with Microsoft’s future Xbox console although analysts doubt that the company would choose such a dangerous strategy. Blocking them would likely upset gamers and prove harmful to big retailers like GameStop.

For now, at least, the used games market appears to be safe.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The imminent demise of the game-console market is here … again. Over the brief lifetime of the electronic entertainment industry, the death of dedicated hardware has been predicted, debunked, and predicted again.

The 1983 Sears Wish Book dedicated 16 pages to game consoles and software. Two years later, the Christmas catalog didn’t include a home video games section at all despite the forthcoming release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in U.S. markets, a flourishing computer games industry, and the ubiquitous presence of arcade cabinets in every mall, roller rink, and pizza parlor in America. Why? Because some guys in toy marketing said video games were a defunct fad.

Buzzfeed’s Joseph Bernstein recently published an article indicting the games press for allowing its enthusiasm to miscast the Wii U’s shortcomings at launch. I take some issue with that assertion. Give the writers who make up the best of games journalism some credit for learning from the past. The last three Nintendo systems — the DS, Wii, and 3DS — all were met with enormous skepticism and criticism from the press, and all subsequently succeeded at market.  Games journalists learned with good cause not to underestimate the ability of Nintendo’s strange ideas to catch on with the public.

The reluctance of games writers to dismiss Nintendo in the months following the Wii U’s underwhelming launch are largely based in an appreciation of history. They’re taking the past into consideration in their cautious optimism that strong summer software announcements could strengthen the Wii U’s market position. They’re also remembering that Nintendo’s conservative business strategies have made relative “failures” like the GameCube extremely profitable for the company. Considering reports that the Wii U currently turns profitable for Nintendo after a single first-party software sale, their hesitancy to declare the end of Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer makes some sense.

Yes, the press did build up a pretty loud buzz around the Wii U. Focusing on exciting events is how these sites post ad revenue, just like every other news agency in the world. But speaking broadly, the press didn’t get the story wrong. They reported on frustrating firmware updates, slow application load times, and disappointing sales as they happened. They did their jobs and, in many cases, did them very well.

With Sony’s PlayStation 4 (PS4) launch announcement, naysayers around the net are again decrying the collapse of the traditional console industry. They might be right. Maybe consoles are going away for a while — maybe even forever. We don’t know that that’s going to happen. Everything we say right now about the supposed imminent demise of Sony and Nintendo is at best speculation and, at worst, pure hype.

Everybody calm down. We don’t know what’s going to happen next.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sony revealed many of the details about its next-gen PlayStation 4 console at an event in New York City today. We saw the new controller, some cloud functionality, and a bunch of other features. But what about the games, man? Well, I’ve got you covered there.

We went to Sony and the third-party publishers and asserted our dominance until they forked over their highest-def trailers for all the new PlayStation 4 games. Let’s check ‘em out:

Destiny

Watch Dogs

Killzone: Shadow Fall

Infamous: Second Son

Knack

The Witness

Drive Club

Deep Down

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The PlayStation 4 is real. Sony announced the next-gen console at an event in New York City earlier tonight. The multimedia conglomerate revealed a lot of games while skipping over a few details. If you didn’t get a chance to see the event yourself, we’ve gone ahead and gathered together everything we know about the PlayStation 4.

We’ll cover everything in this post, but you can get our in-depth coverage by clicking here.

The basics

Let’s get the awkward bit out of the way first. We don’t actually know what the PlayStation 4 looks like because Sony didn’t show the physical console. That means we can’t tell you how many HDMI ports the thing has or whether it looks like a George Foreman grill (it probably doesn’t).

Basic info:

• Price: Sony didn’t specify
• Release: Holiday 2013
• Backwards compatibility with PS3: No (may come later via Gaikai cloud streaming)
• Backwards compatibility with PS3 PlayStation Network games: No (again, maybe later via cloud)
• Free-to-play support: Yes
• Vita/PS4 bundle: Possibly
• Used games: Will work on PS4

 Technical capabilities

Sony revealed the system uses an accelerated processing unit or APU from Advanced Micro Devices. This chip is special. It puts the computational unit and the graphics unit on the same processor, which allows for faster communication between the two. Put simply, this thing should scream.

Some basic PlayStation 4 specs:

• x86 64-bit architecture
• 8GB of GDDR5 high-speed RAM
• USB 3.0
• Blu-ray/DVD drive
• Hard drive (no capacity mentioned)
• Capable of 1.84 trillion floating point calculations per second
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 802.11b/g/n wi-fi

The controller: DualShock 4

It’s back. Sony wouldn’t introduce a new PlayStation without introducing a new DualShock. Only this time, something is a bit different. The DualShock 4 has some features that not even its strange Sixaxis cousin could dream up.

Let’s break it down. Here are the features of the new DualShock 4:

• Similar in design to DualShock 3
• Six-axis (!) motion sensor
• Front touch panel
• Multicolored LED light bar on top
• Built-in speaker
• Built-on stereo headphone jack
• Options button replaces the functionality of Start and Select
• Share button accesses a suite of social tools

That’s a lot of features. You want motion controls? Six-axis sensors are back for that. Touch? Check out that front panel. Just want traditional controls? It’s still basically a DualShock underneath all of the other junk.

The LED light-bar on top of the controller has some interesting functions. It illuminates a different color to match players to their on-screen characters. No more figuring out who is player 1, now you need to know who the pink player is. The light is also capable of something like blinking when a character is low on health.

A Share button now lives where the Select button was on the DualShock 3. This new feature allows players to quickly access a menu of social features. Players can hit share to start broadcasting gameplay to livestreaming sites like Ustream. They can also use it to share quick video snippets to brag to friends.

Finally, my favorite aspect of the new game pad is the built-in audio functionality. The speaker is one thing, but the built-in audio jack allows players to plug in a headset and hear gameplay sounds while simultaneously speaking with teammates. That’s perfect for gamers who try to play at night while everyone else is sleeping.

The camera: PlayStation 4 Eye

Sony is finally updating its PlayStation camera. The new PlayStation 4 Eye actually looks a lot like Microsoft’s Kinect. It uses two camera to capture a 3D depth-of-field. It has four microphones that are capable of isolating sounds at their source.

This new Eye still works with the old PlayStation Move controllers, but Sony says it can also detect players independent of what they are holding. So it pretty much is a Kinect.

The camera device also works with the aforementioned light-bars on the top of the DualShock 4. It can determine where players are sitting and arrange what is on-screen based on that information.

The cloud

Sony didn’t show the PlayStation 4 hardware, but that’s OK because a significant portion of the system’s capabilities will live online. In July, Sony purchased cloud-streaming company Gaikai, the results of that deal came to light at this PlayStation event.

Using its new network-infrastructure, Sony is introducing a number of new features:

• Streaming full PS3, PS2, and PS1 games
• Instant game demos without having to download anything
• Remote Play that enables the Vita to run PlayStation 4 games
• Instantly play new games while it downloads in the background

Sony is positioning Gaikai’s cloud as a supplemental service to its standard download and disc-based gaming. The cloud is not replacing anything, but it could improve every aspect of the entire PlayStation experience.

The games: Killzone: Shadow Fall, Destiny, Knack, and more

Clouds and controllers are great, but it’s all about the games. Sony showed off an impressive lineup of new first-party and third-party titles for the PlayStation 4.

Here’s what they demoed with links to the trailers:

• Deep Down (Capcom)
• Drive Club (Sony)
• The Witness (Jonathan Blow)
• Knack (Sony)
• InFamous: Second Son (Sony)
• Killzone: Shadow Fall (Sony)
• Destiny (Activision)
• Watch Dogs (Ubisoft)
• Diablo III (Activision Blizzard)

The games looked amazing, but we’re skeptical that everything was gameplay. A lot of the videos seemed like target videos, examples of what the developers have in mind, rather than actual working games.

Regardless, the PlayStation 4 is happening. Now it’s time for Microsoft to show us what it’s working on.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow our PlayStation 4 coverage

Jimmy Fallon will play Killzone: Shadow Fall and the PlayStation 4 before you do.

Thursday night’s episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will feature the PlayStation 4 and a live gameplay demo of Killzone: Shadow Fall.

Shadow Fall debuted today during Sony’s PlayStation 4 announcement. Developer Guerrilla Games attended the event to show off the latest entry in the Killzone franchise. It’s a first-person shooter (FPS) full of explosions, blood, and flying bullets (what else?). Portions of it are also much more colorful than past, mostly gray-filled Killzone games.

Excited to announce the PlayStation 4 will be on @LateNightJimmy tomorrow night! Live demo of Killzone: Shadow Fall!! #LateNight #PS4 #whoo—
jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) February 21, 2013

You can check showtimes at the official Late Night with Jimmy Fallon website.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Tonight’s announcement tarnishes the legacy of a once-great controller.

Sony trotted out the newest PlayStation system’s DualShock 4 like a trollop, festooned in new tech like cheap jewelry. All the confidence that it possessed on its first outing was gone — replaced by the grim desperation of a middle-aged woman in a college bar. Fresh cosmetic surgery scars hidden by pale makeup, hurriedly clinging to any able-bodied man who drunkenly pays attention. Lipstick stains and regret like cold rain. Decades of experience and potential legacy thrown away for a chance to go to a party she shouldn’t even want to attend. Time only makes fools of the foolish.

And if there was ever a time for game controllers to be foolish, this is it. Much has changed since the beginning of the last console cycle. Not just advancements in tech but a fundamental shift in the end user’s relationship with the video game. A relationship that has altered the game itself. New means of conveyance, control, and access have converged, destroying the conventions of the medium to such a degree that we don’t even have an agreed upon term for what, exactly, we’re doing when we save the earth from an alien invasion or hurl fat birds at overeducated pigs.

Sony calls their latest controller the DualShock 4, but it is most certainly not a DualShock. An entirely new controller from the company would have been a far more historic event than the iterative upgrade it delivered. The future crested the horizon last May when Watch Dogs debuted at the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show, and dawn is slowly coming into focus. All eyes are forward, but this is also the last chance for a clear look back at the night.

Source: Videogamegallery

In my house, it would have been a Viking retirement.

Sixteen years ago, the analog stick confidentially kicked down the front door of the game industry. It represented everything new and innovative about video games and the physical manifestation of the move to 3D graphics. And while the Nintendo 64 controller was grinding itself to a pulp and permanently callusing the hands of an entire generation, the DualShock stepped forward to show the world all that could be right with controller design: Comfortable, functional, and capable of withstanding even the most passionate rage quits. It was the best of a new breed of controllers, and while its basic design began with Nintendo in 1983, Sony perfected it in 1997.

Fifteen years on and the DualShock has hardly changed. It’s been given home buttons, shiny lights, and six-axis. It has lost a cable and gained bluetooth. Its detractors in recent years have said it’s too small and that it lacks innovation. Many say it was bested by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 controller. But through every rebirth and barb, it has faithfully served a fan base so accustomed to it that they hardly notice they’re holding a controller anymore. To date, Sony will has given the world a game controller whose life span is only rivaled by that of the keyboard and mouse or the arcade stick.

Game companies can’t be blamed for trying to define the future in these confusing times. But motion control, touch screens, and accelerometers? These do not represent the next step for video games. Historically, they compare most favorably to the rise of the personal computer in the 1980′s. Those who could scarcely fathom a computer small enough to fit into their homes found themselves pointing and clicking and word-processing. They slowly warmed to the technology, and it soon became an indispensable part of day-to-day life.

Source: The Guardian

Last known photograph of Maude (right).

Their modern day proxy is every person who never picked up a game controller suddenly becoming an unabashed Wii Bowling or Angry Birds addict. Like the Macintoshes of old, smartphones and Wii remotes woo with dulcet tones — their converts unaware of what’s happened until it’s too late.

But the Macintosh didn’t come with Doom preinstalled. In spite of technology’s exponential growth, change only lives in the wind. The next few years will test the creativity of the game industry, and we will see a fallout of Virtual Boyan scale, but the DualShock name shouldn’t have been dragged into the maelström. Sony has risked the legacy of its historic contribution for a chance at one more party.

They should have let it put on a turtleneck and retire with dignity.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It’s official: The PlayStation 4 is coming out this fall.

Sony announced its latest gaming hardware at an event in New York tonight, but if you weren’t around to see it, we have you covered. The GamesBeat staff has spent the past couple days writing up the big reveal, and we’re collecting all of our stories here. And we’re still working, so be sure to check back for the latest news about Sony’s big night.

Speculation, part one

Ever since that frustratingly vague video came out last month, the gaming world has wondered what Sony was planning to show at tonight’s event. We were all pretty sure from the start that it was the PlayStation 4, but beyond that, we only had rumors and wishful thinking to point us anywhere. But those things aren’t really news, so we passed the time getting nostalgic and trying to see what the past could teach us.

Here’s what we expect from Sony’s Wednesday event

Rumor: PlayStation 4 will launch in November and comes with a PlayStation Eye camera

PlayStation Meeting: Six disappointing scenarios that aren’t PlayStation 4

What we can learn from past PlayStation reveals

Thanks for the #PlayStationMemories: The industry tweets Sony’s legacy

The system

Finally, it was time to see which of those speculations, if any, were correct. Over a two-hour press briefing, Sony made its announcement, had some developers come out, and showed off some games — all without ever actually telling us what the console is going to look like.

Everything you need to know about the PlayStation 4 (so far)

A play-by-play of Sony’s big PlayStation 4 reveal

Sony finally reveals the PlayStation 4 for holiday 2013 — but not the console or price

PlayStation Cloud streaming tech the ‘fastest gaming network in the world’ — and promises PS4 games on Vita

Used games will work on the PlayStation 4, says Sony

Good news: Move controllers work on PlayStation 4. Bad news: DualShock 3 doesn’t

The games

Here’s a look at what you’ll be playing when the PS4 launches late in 2013.

PlayStation 4 video trailer roundup

Knack is the first game confirmed for the PlayStation 4 (and it looks like a Pixar movie)

Sony unveils Killzone: Shadow Fall for the PlayStation 4

Sony’s Evolution Studios reveals social racing Drive Club for PlayStation 4

Sucker Punch reveals Infamous: Second Son as a PlayStation 4 exclusive

Indie darling Jonathan Blow’s The Witness is headed to the PlayStation 4

Blizzard announces Diablo III for PlayStation 4 (and PS3)

Ubisoft announces Watch Dogs for the PlayStation 4

Sony closes PS4 event with a trailer for Bungie’s Destiny

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is officially a next-gen title for PlayStation 4

Speculation, part two

Now that we know that the PS4 is coming, where do we go from here? It’s time for another round of analysis and speculation, but now we have way more confirmed information to work from. Here’s what people are talking about now that the briefing is over.

Here’s what a chip expert says about the PlayStation 4′s potential

PlayStation 4: Reactions from around the Internet

Sony’s Shu Yoshida talks PlayStation 4: PS3/PSN compatibility, microtransactions, and more

PlayStation 4: Sony impresses analysts — others not convinced the next Xbox won’t overshadow it

Grading the PlayStation 4 rumors

The biggest PlayStation 4 disappointments

The DeanBeat: Sorting through the significance of Sony’s PlayStation 4 revelation

Killzone: Shadow Fall demo reveals that Jimmy Fallon isn’t good at first-person shooters

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Read all of our PlayStation 4 coverage (including games) here.

Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4 today at an event in New York. The new machine will be extremely powerful, building upon a foundation of PC technology rather than the legacy of the PlayStation 3.

Sony didn’t explicitly release details about the PS4′s capabilities, but it disclosed plenty of information that gives technologists something to discuss. After all, modern-day game consoles pack the technology of recent supercomputers into an affordable and attractive box for the living room. As such, they are among the highest technological achievements that engineers can create. We’ve pinged Kevin Krewell, a longtime chip analyst at the Linley Group, for his reaction.

Advanced Micro Devices is most likely the provider of the processor. [Update: Sony confirmed this in its subsequent press release]. Sony didn’t say so, but it referred to an “accelerated processing unit,” which is AMD’s terminology for a chip that combines a microprocessor and graphics processing on a single piece of silicon. As two-chips-in-one, it’s more economical for a game console.

“This is an AMD chip with Radeon graphics,” Krewell said.

Sony’s Mark Cerny, (pictured above), the system architect for the PlayStation 4, said that the machine will have a local hard disk drive, 8GB of main memory (using the GDDR5 flavor from fast PCs), an enhanced PC GPU, and 64-bit x86 processing. Again, AMD fits the bill for all of that. Sony called it a “custom processor,” meaning it combined AMD’s cores in a unique way.

The advantage of using PC technology — a move that matches that made by Microsoft with the original Xbox — is that Sony can take advantage of all of the volume economics of the PC industry to lower the costs of its machine. The drawback, however, is that Sony may have a harder time distinguishing the performance of its machine from high-end gaming PCs at some point in the PS4′s life cycle.

The machine uses its GPU for particle physics processing, which indicates GPU Compute, Krewell said. That likely means it will support OpenCL computing, or using the graphics cores to do nongraphics tasks. The specs in fact say that the GPU has 18 compute units that collectively produce 1.84 teraflops of computing power. Combined with the CPU, the computing power tops 2 teraflops.

[Update:  Anand Shimpi of Anandtech mentioned in a post that high-end PCs that cost a couple of thousand dollars can already do more than this kind of graphics performance, but the graphics are much better than the PS 3's.]

Krewell also said that the 176GB/s of memory bandwidth is 3.7 times the bandwidth of the Cell processor (made by IBM for the PlayStation 3, with Rambus XDR main memory) and the Nvidia RSX (GDDR3) graphics chip memory bandwidth combined. The 8GB of GDDR5 memory is 16 times the memory of the PS3.

The system will have an optical disc reader that can read 6X Blu-ray and 8X DVD discs. That means it can get data off those discs faster than the original, slower Blu-ray and DVD drives of the past.

The machine has several options for video output, including analog, HDMI, and digital optical. It has universal serial bus (USB 3.0) input-output. It has standard Ethernet and Bluetooth 2.1.

Sony didn’t give any other speeds and feeds, so it’s hard to estimate clock speeds and which AMD processor and graphics cores are in it, Krewell said.

Cerny mentioned that the machine will turn on instantly. You can press the power button and put the game into suspend mode. It will stop where it is, and then you can tap the power button later to resume the game immediately. You can also use the PlayStation Vita, a smartphone or tablet as a second screen. You can use that second screen as a remote, or use it perform some actions from afar. You can, for instance, view a map on a second screen while playing an adventure game. Or you could use your second screen to spectate games being played by your friends.

[Update: Shimpi said that Sony referenced dedicated video encode and decode technology that allows a player to instantaneously record and share screenshots and video of your gameplay. This may be the same hardware that allows the PS 4 to function as a game server and stream gameplay to a PlayStation Vita].

Sony will use the cloud gaming technology from Gaikai to run “past, present, and future” PlayStation titles, according to Gaikai chief executive David Perry, whose company Sony acquired last year for $380 million. This likely means that Gaikai cloud gaming power playing older PS3 titles on the PS4 through cloud-based infrastructure. That obviates the need to put backward-compatibility hardware in the PS4, cutting its overall costs.

Cerny acknowledged that the “radical technology” of the past Cell processor got in the way of simplicity for game developers. So the new machine is making the leap to PC technology, which can easily run engines such as Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4. Sony showed a demo of Unreal Engine 4, reportedly running in real time on the PS4.

“It’s very comparable to a mid- to high-end gaming PC,” Krewell said. “Even though the CPU is combined with the GPU on one die, like most PC processors today, the higher bandwidth memory and custom design indicates it should have graphics performance more like a discrete GPU found in a gaming PC.”

Cerny mentioned that the CPU has eight cores and a state-of-the-art GPU,with a combined two teraflops of computational performance. He showed the Havok physics engine running on the PS4 while consuming very little of the system’s overall computing power.

Will history matter?

In the last technology arms race, the technical specifications didn’t really matter.

By the end of 2012, Nintendo sold more than 100.2 million Wiis, while Microsoft sold 79.2 million Xbox 360s, and Sony sold 75.2 million PlayStation 3s, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

With the current generation of consoles, Microsoft came out first in 2005 at $300 and $400, while Sony and Nintendo followed in the fall of 2006. Sony’s machine packed so much technology in it, including a state-of-the-art Blu-ray player, that it cost $500 and $600 at the outset. But Microsoft used one of the same core designs that Sony did. The three-core Xbox 360 processor proved a match in terms of the visuals it could deliver compared to the PlayStation 3, and Microsoft made improvements along the way.

Both Microsoft and Sony used the traditional console chip strategy. They developed high-end chips using some of the very best — but also  cost-friendly — chip designs available. They sold their initial hardware at a loss and then reaped the benefits in terms of software revenues — the “razor and razor blade” model.

Over time, they rode the cost curve down. Every year, they redesigned the system boards and other components with the goal of cost reduction in mind. And every couple of years, they switched to a more advanced manufacturing process. This curve, of course, comes from the continuous innovation of the semiconductor industry that has been codified as Moore’s Law, which holds that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. Chip makers did this by shrinking the width between circuits. With shorter circuits, electrical signals could move from one part of the chip to another faster. The power consumed declined, and since the distance between circuits was smaller, chips could be made smaller and still perform the same functions as earlier generation chips. Since the chips were smaller, they consumed less material, the yield (or ratio of functioning chips out of the total made) improved, and the costs went down.

In the case of console chips, the system makers reduced the cost while maintaining the same level of performance. They could reduce the cost of making the consoles dramatically every couple of years, and over the course of six or seven years, they have been able to bring the prices down.

An Xbox 360 now sells for $200 to $300, but with much larger hard disk capacities. The PS3 sells for the same.

But Nintendo’s Wii turned the technology race in a new direction, unexpectedly adding motion-sensing controls with a remote control-like controller. It cost only $250, and Nintendo claimed from the outset that it wasn’t selling the hardware at a loss. Nintendo used older chip processes and started out with much lower costs. It now sells a Wii for $130. That enabled it to reach a much wider mass market.

Yet Nintendo’s console ran out of steam before its rivals did. While the graphics of PS3 and Xbox 360 games raced ahead, the cartoon graphics of the Wii made it seem like a poor substitute. For the past couple of years, the Xbox 360 has sold more units than the Wii, erasing some of Nintendo’s previous overwhelming lead in this generation.

Microsoft’s fortunes turned around as it continuously upgraded its software-driven Xbox Live service, and then it introduced the motion-sensing Kinect add-on system, which enabled the console to recognize gestures and voice commands. The Xbox 360 had just enough horsepower to pull off Kinect — something the Wii clearly couldn’t do with its aging technology.

This time around, Nintendo’s low-cost strategy may have failed. The new Wii U ($300 to $350) upgraded the experience from the old Wii to match what the PS3 and Xbox 360 could do, and it enabled Nintendo games to use high-definition graphics. But the Wii U isn’t even outselling the Xbox 360, and Nintendo has shaved back its estimates for sales ending March 31 to 4 million, down from 5.5 million earlier. Nintendo evidently didn’t make enough of a technological leap, even though it tried to incorporate the tablet phenomenon into its new game system.

Meanwhile, all three of the console makers are being buffeted by competition from Apple and Google-based smartphones and tablets.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Read all of our PlayStation 4 coverage (including games) here.

Game developer Bungie will take its upcoming Destiny first-person shooter game to the PlayStation 4. That’s a big deal, if Destiny is anywhere near as big a hit as the Halo series, which has sold more than 50 million games and generated billions in revenue to date.

Jason Jones, the co-founder of the Bellevue, Wash.-based game studio that created the Halo series, said in a video, “We can’t wait to see what PlayStation fans do when they set foot in our world for the first time.”

Destiny is expected to be one of the highest-quality, and most expensive, titles in the works anywhere in the industry today. After Bungie finished making the first set of Halo games for Microsoft, it cut a deal with Activision Blizzard to make Destiny, a three-part series to be published over the course of 10 years.

“Destiny is going to be amazing on PlayStation 4,” he said. “It’s a great piece of gear.

Bungie is creating a first-person shooter game that will be part of a massively multiplayer online gaming universe. And Jones said that players will be able to create, grow, and customize characters in a “persistent online world.”

He said the studio has been working on Destiny for a few years and the goal is to “take a genre like the first-person shooter and turn it on its head again.”

He said it includes a “fantastic new universe to explore” and that playing Destiny “cooperatively with friends will blow your mind.”

In a statement, Bungie chief executive Harold Ryan said, “Destiny is being developed for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, with both versions available at Destiny’s launch. Destiny will also feature exclusive in-game content, only available on PlayStation.”

Here’s some previous coverage of Destiny, and check out the new trailer below.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Read all of our PlayStation 4 coverage (including games) here.

Ubisoft never met a video game console it didn’t like. After all, it is making eight games for the Nintendo Wii U, which is sinking pretty hard right now. But the French game publisher announced today that it will take its much-anticipated video game Watch Dogs to the just-announced PlayStation 4.

Yves Guillemot, the chief executive of Ubisoft, said on stage at Sony’s unveiling of the PlayStation 4 today in New York that Ubisoft has multiple development teams at work on new titles. These games will be “more connected, more immersive, and more interactive.”

“We are creating games that can be played anywhere, anytime, across many different devices,” Guillemot said. He suggested that Watch Dogs is going to be that kind of game, as Ubisoft mentioned at last year’s E3, where it showed a version of the game on the Apple iPad. But Ubisoft hasn’t shown all that much of Watch Dogs’ gameplay until today. The title’s presence on the PS4 is sure to please more than a few fans who have followed the game since last year’s preview.

Late Wednesday, Ubsisoft announced that the open-world-adventure game Watch Dogs is coming to the PlayStation 3, Nintendo’s Wii U, the PC, and the Xbox 360 — though the publisher made no mention of a next-gen Microsoft console. At last year’s E3, Watch Dogs won 83 awards from various game critics.

Jonathan Morin, the creative director at Ubisoft in Montreal, introduced a new gameplay video for Watch Dogs.

He talked about the theme of Watch Dogs, where you can take control of “smart cities,” a future scenario where advanced camera, monitoring, and networking technology enables you to control every aspect of life in a city. And you can do this for good or evil.

The video showed the masked protagonist, the vigilante Aiden Pearce, (pictured above) as he passed by people in the streets of Chicago. As he goes by a homeless man, an icon appears over his head and describes him as “Marcus Rhodes, Iraq war veteran.” (Pictured right). Pearce has used his smartphone to hack into the “central operating system” for Chicago, giving him omnipotent powers to control the city.

Ubisoft says, “Aiden will be able to tap into the city’s omnipresent security cameras, download personal information to locate a target, control systems such as traffic lights or public transportation to stop a chase, and more. The city of Chicago is now the ultimate weapon.”

So, of course, he hacks an ATM machine.

He witnesses a criminal robbing a woman and springs into action. He pursues the criminal, and you can see the location of the thief on the minimap on the lower right corner. It shows that the main character is aware of the criminal’s movements at all times thanks to the city’s ubiquitous monitoring technology. He chases the criminal down, and a sign eventually appears, saying, “Criminal neutralized.”

He has a shootout with the police and escapes by hacking a train and then jumping on top of it..

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow our PlayStation 4 coverage

Blizzard Entertainment took the stage at Sony’s PlayStation event tonight to announce how it will take over the world. What means will the company use to dominate the globe? Well, it starts with Diablo III on the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 3 … and I don’t think Blizzard has a clear idea of what it will take to conquer the Earth.

Blizzard senior vice president of story and franchise development Chris Metzen introduced the product, but he didn’t bring along any footage. Metzen said the game is running well on PlayStation 3 and even better on the PlayStation 4.

“We’ve been playing on the PC side of the street, but we held a deep desire to keep back in to the [console] mix,” said Metzen.

He said Blizzard wanted to bring the perfect game to consoles, and that Diablo III is that game.

This move does raise some interesting questions about how something like Diablo III’s real-money auction house will work on the PlayStation Network. Gamers use this to put their gear up for auction and receive real money in exchange for those goods. I contacted Blizzard to clarify if that will make the transition to Sony’s hardware.

Diablo III’s move to consoles isn’t much of a surprise. The action-RPG has been long-rumored for home machines.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow our PlayStation 4 coverage

The maker of Braid didn’t bring any explosions, but he did bring an interesting new title for PlayStation 4.

Braid developer Jonathan Blow took the stage today at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting for its new hardware. Blow spoke about The Witness, his first game since the breakout hit Braid. It’s an open-world puzzle game where every puzzle contains some sort of deeper meaning — and it’s set to debut on the PlayStation 4.

“In most games with open worlds, the developers try to make them as big as possible so you’ll be impressed by the scale. In The Witness, we compress everything so you’ll always be finding new things,” Blow said in his stage presentation. “Every puzzle has an idea in it. On the design side, we worked very hard to convey — in a nonverbal way — the essence of each puzzle.”

Blow said PlayStation 4 is the only console that The Witness will hit at launch. It is also scheduled for iOS and PC.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow our PlayStation 4 coverage

At Sony’s PlayStation 4 unveiling in New York, Sucker Punch Production’s Nate Fox took the stage to bring everyone down for a moment with some information on how likely it is that you’re being monitored by the government. That, and to announce Infamous: Second Son.

Fox described a world in which the powerful members of society oppress the average citizens and what would happen if those average citizens suddenly developed superpowers. It sounds like an idea inspired by the recent populist movements like Occupy Wall Street or the Tea Party.

While little information is available now, Sony did present a trailer that showed a city under a lockdown and a militarized police force chasing someone into an alley. After the soldiers cornered him, the figure fired off some red flashes of light and destroyed the armored personnel carrier that was chasing him.

At this point, it’s unclear if Second Son is a reboot of the Infamous series, a proper sequel, or simply a sidestory. We’ll have more information as it becomes available.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sony’s Evolution Studios revealed today it is working on a new social driving game called Drive Club for the PlayStation 4.

Matt Southern, the head of the studio that made the MotorStorm PlayStation 3 games, announced Drive Club at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting in New York. He said his studio came up with the idea 10 years ago and waited for the hardware that could do it justice. The kind of networking technology to do a game like this couldn’t be done, Southern implied, until the PS 4.

Drive Club introduces the idea of social driving, where you can form a club of drivers that you play with on a regular basis, much as you do in joining a clan for a first-person shooter like Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

In Drive Club, you create your car, drive it on tracks, and post your scores. But you can also create a challenge, where you pick the track, the time of day, the weather, and other driving conditions. Then you issue the challenge and ask your friends to race on the track. They can play it asynchronously, on different timetables, or live.

“You can drive in real clubs, asynchronously or in real time against other clubs all around the world,” he said. “Watch the drama unfold as others try to meet my challenge,” whether 1-on-1 or in tournaments with thousands of players.

The technology to pull this off, with high-fidelity graphics that make the racing experience as close to real life as possible, means that “we’ve gone borderline insane,” Southern said.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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