Going into E3, the Xbox was in a weaker position than the PS3. The intrusive DRM, not allowing used games unless under certain conditions, always requiring the Kinect to be plugged in (which looks even more unattractive with the recent revelations about the NSA). All in all, this was Sony's event to lose.
Television and Home Entertainment
Although gamers primarily don't buy a console just to watch movies and television, the television and movie features are a nice bonus for yourself or anyone else in the house who may want to head over to Netflix or pop in a blue-ray once in a while.
Both the Playstation 4 and Xbox One are essentially on par when it comes to home entertainment. Whether it's blue-ray, Netflix or cloud networks, both systems are ready to support these systems and thankfully none of these are behind a paywall in the form of PS+ and Xbox Live. In addition to these features, Microsoft and Sony are spearheading social networking. In fact the PS4 has a Facebook share button built into the controller while the Xbox One is streamlined with TwitchTV to easily stream game play and commentary(Because we really needed more TwitchTV streamers).
Down to Brass Tacks
Now that social networking is out of the way, lets tackle what we all care about. The games. The number of games, the quality of games, new games, old games, used games, indie games, triple A games. Games, games, games and the game gods did indeed bestow games upon us.
The Xbox One features 9 exclusives:
A new Halo title.
No Xbox would be complete without Halo .No formal information is given about the title, but I assume there will be Spartans and guns.
Titan Fall.
From Respawn Entertainment, Titan Fall is an Xbox One exclusive sci-fi mech game in which players face off with each other in what may be an exclusively multiplayer game (don't quote me). Players can also exit and fight outside of the mech, what that entails remains to be seen. There are plenty of mech games out there so I am hesitant to get excited about this one, but the ability to leave your mech has me curious.
Ryse: Son of Rome
Ryse puts you in the sandals of the Roman general Marius Titus. The opening scene looks like the beach invasion from Saving Private Ryan. I don't want to talk too much about the quality of the game before I get my hands on it, but from what I've seen this title really exemplifies what I dislike about modern gaming. QTEs are everywhere, Romans have British accents and it looks very hack and slash. Not the mention, why is a General on the front lines and why is he fighting alone if he is part of a Roman legion? I'm all for making an action based Roman game, but this doesn't seem to feature anything that made the Romans great to begin with.
Forza Motorsport 5.
I've never played any Forza games, however from what I hear, they are quality. I spent hours racing away in games like Grid and Gran Turismo. In fact Gran Turismo was one of my first racing games along with F Zero X. Forza 5 will include cloud computing and pretty innovative AI improvements that will simulate how the player drives and use that data to create more challenging races. Nice to see game companies are spear heading the way for a Skynet future.
Quantum Break.
The short demo showed us what appears to be a time bending shooter. Very little information was given aside from the fact that it will apparently blend with a television show. This may be similar to Trion Worlds Defiance, but again, no information has been released about either the game play or TV show.
D4.
From the creator of Deadly Premonition comes a episodic murder mystery game which seems to have some sort of kinect control scheme available.
Crimson Dragon.
The kinect enabled shooter puts you on the back of a dragon in what looks like a StarFox-esque rail shooter. The trailer is nice and the game looks solid, Star Fox fans should keep an eye out for this one.
Dead Rising 3.
Dead Rising is back and looks great. The newest game in the series is open-world and faces the protagonist Nick Ramos against zombies... Ya know, like every Dead Rising game... Hence DEAD RISING in the title. The game includes cars, artillery and air strike. I don't know about you, but my body is ready for Mercenaries plus zombies.
What Lies Below.
As someone who attempted to jump into the Indie Development field, I find that these games drive me to the point of insane jealousy. The games art looks great and the game play looks pretty fun. And who doesn't love a good indie game?(That was a rhetorical question by the way)
Well that's a wrap for the Xbox One game exclusives. But Sony isn't one to take shots without firing back, and fire back they did.
Killzone: Shadow Fall.
The Killzone serious continues with this newest PS4 exclusive. After playing the first Killzone, I was not largely impressed by it's mechanics and story, however the newest trailer may entice me into swooping this one up and giving the series another chance.
Knack.
Nothing like a good platformer if it's done right. Platformers give developers a chance to experiment with art work, puzzles and game play that wouldn't be possible in the 3D realm. Knack looks very promising in this regard and may satisfy some of the platformer fans out there.
Deep Down.
From Capcom comes a visually stunning game set in the medieval era. The trailer showed little in terms of gameplay, although we do see a dragon and some very pretty graphics that isn't crippled by a grey, brown and bloom overlay to water down the colors.
Drive Club.
From it's 1994 roots, the racing game returns on the PS4. We don't know much about the game and it's feature but here's a shocker, you drive and you race.
The Order 1886.
The makers of the God of War series is releasing a werewolf fighting action game where 3 hunters are embroiled in a battle against werewolves, using unique weapons like lightning guns and machine guns to fend off the hoards. The setting is a semi-future semi-sci-fi 1886 world with radios and Orwellian blimps over London.... So yeah, werewolves.
inFAMOUS: Second Son.
There was somewhat of a war between the Prototype and inFAMOUS games. At the time I stuck with Prototype, but from what I hear, inFAMOUS was better. I'm looking forward to seeing for myself at it's release.
So there we have the exclusives. But it's time to tally up the blows and end the war. Who won? Well it's goes a bit deeper than the number of exclusives this time.
Pound for pound
As I said in the beginning of this article, this was Sony's conference to win. Microsoft backed themselves into a corner with their stance on DRM, used games and the Kinect requirements. And wow did Sony fire all cannons.
The beginning of the conference was tame enough with the CEO talking about the PS Vita, continued PS3 support and PS4 games, but the final 10 minutes sealed the deal for many people. The remaining minutes of the Sony conference was met with a collective sigh of relief from the gaming community as Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Jack Tretton proudly proclaimed that the PS4 would not impose any restrictions on the used games market, a stark contrasted to the Xbox Ones requirement that used games be bought at selection retailers.
"They can trade in the game at retail, sell it to another person, lend it to a friend, or keep it forever"
-Jack Tretton, Sony Entertainment CEO.
Not satisfied with stopping at used games, Tretton continued to clarify that the PS4 would not impose additional restrictions with DRM, stating that PS4 games do not need to be connected online to play or check in periodically. Jack even added as a jab to Microsoft that the PS4 "won't stop working if you haven't authenticated in twenty-four hours".
The end of Trettons presentation included additional information on the Playstation Network.
So with Sony already vastly ahead of Microsoft all Sony had to do was sit back and reap the success, but were they yet satisfied? No. In a classic 'One more thing' moment, President and Group CEO for Sony Computer Entertainment Andrew House presented "We'll continue to offer to best value on the market. I'm very proud to announce that the Playstation 4 will be available at 399 dollars."
399 Dollars
399 Euros
349 Pounds
Sony did everything right in this presentation. They got the boring stuff no one cared about out of the way at the start (sorry Vita users) and ended their presentation on a bomb shell that Microsoft was reeling from. Not only is there no intrusive DRM, not only is there no mandatory Kinect system, no restrictions on used games, not only is the hardware better and the system itself smaller, it's also cheaper. That is exactly what gamers needed. They needed to be reminded that even though they gaming industry is being dragged through corporate homogeneity, that there are still game console companies that will still listen to their consumers.
The catalog of games looks impressive and the system itself is a cheaper, better solution. The question isn't who won this console war, the question is: was there ever any doubt that Nintendo ever lost? Yep, Nintendomination wins again.
But really, even if you have an internet connection and don't mind that the kinect is required and you don't mind forking over $100 for an inferior system, you shouldn't support the president that it's OK to restrict users and game sellers. There is something to be said when the point is made that enablers are half the problem.
After the dust settled, there is a clear winner in this war, and the winner is Sony but in the war between consumer and company, the winner, thankfully, is us.
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