Sony Shows Microsoft It Means Business @ E3

By Kevin Parrish
published

Sony took no prisoners during its media briefing on Monday, opening the show with a cinematic trailer telling the story behind the upcoming game, Destiny, from former Halo developer Bungie. The company also announced that Destiny will arrive first on the PlayStation consoles, with a beta arriving on July 17. The game ships on September 9.

Wow, what an opening.

Sony introduced a wide range of new titles, original content and hardware during its press event, showing Microsoft that it has no plans to relinquish its lead on the market. One of the heavy hitters gracing the PlayStation 4 will be No Man's Sky, an open-world sci-fi title that seems to have no boundaries. Players will have their own unique planet, thus creating millions of inhabited worlds that players can explore.

Among the new titles showcased during the press event include Battlefield Hardline, Magicka 2, LittleBigPlanet 3, Bloodborne (2015), and Let It Die. There's also Dead Island 2, Mortal Kombat X, a remastered version of The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain, Grand Theft Auto 5 (this fall), Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Batman Arkham Knight and Minecraft.

Sony also introduced on Monday an exclusive Destiny bundle packing a custom Glacier White PlayStation 4, the Destiny game, and 30 days of PlayStation Plus. This $449 bundle will be available when the Destiny game hits store shelves on September 9.

PlayStation 4 owners will also have the opportunity to play Destiny's First Look Alpha. This alpha will begin on Thursday, June 12th, at 12:00pm PDT, and ends on Sunday, June 15, at 11:59pm PDT. To register for a chance to gain entry head here. You'll need a PSN ID and a PlayStation Plus subscription.

"Consumers selected to participate in the Alpha will receive their alpha code via an on-console message and an e-mail sent to the e-mail address associated with the PSN ID entered," states the FAQ. "Alpha codes will be delivered beginning @ 12 Noon PST."

Sony announced that later this year PlayStation 4 owners will be able to upload gameplay to their personal YouTube channels. Further, Sony announced that you'll have the ability to watch gameplay in real time, and even interact with a player's experience. Twitch and UStream logos appeared on screen during this part of the presentation.

The company also revealed that the PlayStation Now streaming service will go into open beta this July 31 on the PlayStation 4, followed by the PlayStation 3 and Vita after that, then select Sony televisions. This streaming games service will offer more than 100 PlayStation 3 games.

If that wasn't enough to announce, Sony also revealed that PlayStation TV is heading to America. It's a set-top-box that includes the controller, the HDMI cable, the memory card and a LEGO Movie voucher, all for $139; it can be purchased on its own for $99. The device is obviously out to compete with Amazon's Fire TV and Apple TV, offering streaming video and a gaming component in one simple solution.

Compared with Microsoft's E3 presentation, Sony seemingly covered more ground, revealing both software and hardware. Just like Microsoft, Sony is betting on AAA games like Batman Arkham Knight, LittleBigPlanet 3 and No Man's Sky to push even more hardware. Destiny will probably be the big bread winner until the game finally arrives on Xbox One.

Which company made the boldest opening moves this week, Microsoft or Sony? That's highly debatable until you throw in Grand Theft Auto 5 and Project Morpheus, which will be on display at E3 2014.

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Kevin Parrish
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • CaedenV
    Great presentation, and great lineup! Now if the rest of Sony would be equally strong then the company would not go belly-up and some of this might mean something.

    Project Morpheus is going to be just as much of a gimmick as the Eye Toy and Kinnect. Great idea, very cool tech, but without mass user adoption there will be little support from developers. I would love for VR to become a real thing, but as much as it pains me, the technology simply does not exist to make it really happen yet. We need much higher than 1080p displays, and a minimum of 60Hz refresh with minimal latency. If a $500 GPU cannot push that kind of fps and resolution out properly yet, then there is no way that these toy consoles are going to put out a product that will be any good.
    Reply
  • Dirk_Funk
    Great presentation, and great lineup! Now if the rest of Sony would be equally strong then the company would not go belly-up and some of this might mean something.

    Project Morpheus is going to be just as much of a gimmick as the Eye Toy and Kinnect. Great idea, very cool tech, but without mass user adoption there will be little support from developers. I would love for VR to become a real thing, but as much as it pains me, the technology simply does not exist to make it really happen yet. We need much higher than 1080p displays, and a minimum of 60Hz refresh with minimal latency. If a $500 GPU cannot push that kind of fps and resolution out properly yet, then there is no way that these toy consoles are going to put out a product that will be any good.

    I'd hate to agree with you, but you are probably right. My short experience with occulus was mindblowing but very uncomfortable. I love rollercoasters and all sorts of things that do nastiness to people's guts, but it felt like my entire body was rejecting the occulus. Headaches and motion sickness. My friend who was letting me sample his said that it took some time but he had been used to it by then. Enthusiasts might be willing to power through for a glimpse at the future, but most people would rather just use a screen, without the discomfort.

    But anyways, Destiny looks awesome :)
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    Yep Sony continues to demonstrate how effective their new leadership really is at making decisions compared to the old. Also, how screwed the Xbox division is lol.
    Reply
  • ExpLicitSainT
    I'd personally rather see an American company succeed, and the jobs that MS offers in the US stay around. That said, the only thing Sony presented of interested was Destiny, which will be a title on the Xbox anyways. I'm looking forward to the new Halo release and it was nice to see MS talking about games running at full 1080P 60FPS for once. Hopefully they can continue that. All the other stuff like twitch, TV, internet video uploads, etc... are already on the Xbox.
    Reply
  • antilycus
    I think people that know the history of Sony's E3 Press conference will take what is shown with a grain of salt (Look up 2005 Killzone "fake" trailer). No PS3 game E V E R looked remotely that good.

    That being said, I think the "aged" gamers felt sold out by MS and in all honesty went back to PC gaming. Especially since you can stream from 1 machine to any other machine (Linux and Mac included) without even having a GPU worth writing home about (aka an intel "GPU"). I've been streaming WatchDogs and Skyrim from STEAM on my powerful PC (still more powerful than XBOXONE or PS4 and is years old). My SLI GTX 460 SE's have been doing great. All on my big TV, with a XBOX 360 / XBOX ONE controller and no need to pay the tax of the console being outdated in 2 years, but having to wait another 6 years for the next one. This will be the last version of console before everything heads to the cloud IMO. Hell my OUYA plays games from OnLive that look great and that thing isn't powerful (the OUYA) by any means.
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    Disclaimer: I own both consoles and like them both very much

    After watching both MSFT's and Sony's E3's, i came away impressed more by microsoft's. Microsoft just has more AAA Developer's on board. virtually all of the big hitters have DLC coming first to Xbox, although i dont really care about it that much. Console DLC is expensive and comes out to late, after i've lost interest in the game all together.

    I have to say, after all the hype, my xbox one gets used everyday because of the simple fact it integrates into my DirecTV setup. my PS4 sits idle until a exclusive title hits. Most of the games so far have been on PC as well, and my PC will always get the pick over the consoles so long as the game is available.

    The success of the Xbox 360 is paying dividends to the Xbox One in regards to AAA title exclusivity. PS4 will catch up over the years, but the PS3's lackluster platform has done damage to the PS4.
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    i also want to add, that the games for gold free games have been worlds better than the PSN free games. we are getting full titles, not just crappy arcade games.
    Reply
  • David Dewis
    13475747 said:
    Great presentation, and great lineup! Now if the rest of Sony would be equally strong then the company would not go belly-up and some of this might mean something.

    Project Morpheus is going to be just as much of a gimmick as the Eye Toy and Kinnect. Great idea, very cool tech, but without mass user adoption there will be little support from developers. I would love for VR to become a real thing, but as much as it pains me, the technology simply does not exist to make it really happen yet. We need much higher than 1080p displays, and a minimum of 60Hz refresh with minimal latency. If a $500 GPU cannot push that kind of fps and resolution out properly yet, then there is no way that these toy consoles are going to put out a product that will be any good.

    I hope I haven't misread what you meant, but a £150 GPU can run most games at 1080p 60fps. My £340 R9 290 can run some games at 4k 60fps and certainly can run 1440p at 60fps and 1080p at 120fps. I doubted the ability of the PS4 when it first launched. I don't own one (I have a crossfire R9 290 PC setup) but my brother and my girlfriend do, and I'm impressed by what they can manage. I've read nothing but positive things about things about the 1080p oculus rift, so I'm sure console games that are used to having 720p most of the time wont mind.
    Reply
  • stevejnb
    Yikes, kind of a let down for PS4 owners, opening with Destiny. Over the past two generations they've almost unanimously declared that they consider Bungie overrated and that they generally think Resistance is better than anything Bungie ever made.
    Reply
  • rokit
    Yes, Mikes were totaly crashed. Sony showed some really sweet games coming for their console while MS showed what(except for multiplaform i mean)? MS fails yet again.
    Reply