Sony kicked off their E3 press conference with CEO of Sony Entertainment America, Jack Tretton, talking about the future of PS3 and PS Vita. More than 85 titles will launch for the Vita by the end of this year, including Flower, Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate, and The Walking Dead; all of which will launch this summer bundled with 400 Days DLC. Tretton also talked about the PS3 and its lineup of upcoming titles, such as Last of Us, Puppeteer, Rain, Beyond Two Souls, and Gran Turismo 6. A new trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins was also released with the announcement of exclusive “Knightfall” DLC coming to PlayStation and also a 1960’s Adam West style skin.
The Design of the PlayStation 4 console was then unveiled by Andrew House. Michael Lynton – Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures – then came out to discuss that they were working on exclusive content for PlayStation and stated that Redbox Instant would be available soon to U.S. users. There will also be a Live Pay Per View service coming soon, and also Flixster. Unlimited Video and Unlimited Music will also be available at launch on the PlayStation 4.
Shu Yoshida – President of Worldwide Studios SCE – then announced that over 30 titles are in development for the PS4, 12 of which are brand new IP. One of the new IP shown was from Santa Monica Studio, and Ready at Dawn Studios and is called The Order: 1866. More gameplay videos were then shown for Killzone Shadowfall, Drive Club, Infamous Second Son and Knack. Killzone, Drive Club, and Knack will all be available at the launch of the PS4 while Infamous will be available Q1 2014.
Quantic Dream then showed a tech demo running real time on the PS4 called The Dark Sorcerer. Only part of the demo was shown however as the rest will be at the PlayStation booth and also streamed live on the PlayStation website.
Adam Boyes – VP of Publisher and Developer Relations at Sony – then announced that Bastion developer SuperGiant Games will have its new game Transistor debut on the PS4 early next year. Boyes also stated that Sony will be allowing Indie developers to self publish their games. He went on to announce 8 titles that would make their console debut exclusively on PS4: Tribute Games’ Mercenary Kings, Switchblade Monkeys’ Secret Ponchos, 17-Bit’s Galak-Z, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee – New ‘n’ Tasty, Red Barrells’ Outcast, Klei Entertainment’s Don’t Starve and Ragtag Studios’ Ray’s The Dead. Diablo 3 for PlayStation will also include exclusive item’s from existing PlayStation franchises.
Square Enix was up next and announced after a new trailer that Final Fantasy Versus 13 has been renamed to Final Fantasy 15. However, that wasn’t all that came from Square Enix as they also announced Kingdom Hearts 3 was in development and is coming to the PS4.
A live gameplay demo for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was premiered next and it followed protagonist Edward Kenway as he followed someone who had been spying on him. After dealing with the spy the developer showed off Kenway’s free-running skills and some naval combat after a number of ships begun to fire at Kenway.
A new demo for Watch Dogs was also shown by creative director Jonathan Moran. In the demo protagonist Aiden Pierce needs to save his friend T-Bone but needs to lose the police that are after him before he can.
It was then announced that the Elder Scrolls Online would be coming to PS4 along with a new Bethesda partnership. A new trailer was revealed for the game along with a Spring 2014 release date. The world premiere trailer for Mad Max by Avalanche Studios was revealed next.
Jack Tretton then returned to the stage and pointed out clearly that Sony will support used games, and there will be no DRM whatsoever. People who want to play single player games offline will not need to connect to the internet periodically, and games will not require any authentication over the internet. PS Plus will be required for multiplayer games now, but current memberships will carry over to the PS4 and subscribing to PS Plus once will give the user PS Plus status on the PS3, PS4 and Vita. The PS Plus edition of Drive Club will also be available for free for a year to PS Plus members.
The world gameplay premiere of Bungie’s Destiny was the last game shown, which showcased the combat, multiplayer, exploration and equipment features. An exclusive partnership with Activision and Bungie was also announced.
Gaikai’s Cloud service is aiming to be available in 2014 and will make PS3 games playable on the PS4 and PS3, with a Vita service following soon after.
Sony then announced the PS4 will be available this holiday season in the U.S. and Europe. It will cost $399 U.S., €399 in Europe, and £349 in the U.K.