It was fitting for the PlayStation 5 devkit to leak this week, as Gamescom 2019 served as an extension of E3 2019 in so many ways. Geoff Keighley huffed and puffed during his Opening Night Live presentation, but once the curtain came down, it was clear that the two-hour stage show was mostly conceived as a screen to get auteur Hideo Kojima on stage.
The biggest news during the press conference dropped on Twitter, as Sony casually announced that it had acquired Insomniac Games. The company seems to enjoy doing things with as little fanfare as possible lately, and we’re enjoying its swagger – especially seeing as the aforementioned host was forced off-script to address the news threatening to upstage his own showcase.
The games well is, well, well and truly empty right now, though. Need for Speed Heat needed stage time, simply because publisher EA has waited so darn long to reveal. Outside of that, though, PlayStation leveraged the event to put the spotlight on a couple of its smaller endeavours, with the excellent Erica shadow-dropping during the show itself.
Little Nightmares II was a well-received announcement, but one that’s indicative of where we’re at in the generation; Bandai Namco, like so many other publishers, is keeping the vast majority of its cards close to its chest. And that’s the big industry theme right now: practically everyone’s gone into hiding until the next-gen hype cycle is ready to get underway.
It means that the industry is a little boring at the minute, but we’re also expecting the PS5’s reveal event to be insane. There are so many teams unaccounted for right now – everyone from Rocksteady to Rockstar. And while the Japanese giant will have to share the spoils with Microsoft, recent comments from the company suggest that it’s aggressively pursuing third-parties.
There was comment in a Japanese magazine from a Sony executive that suggested 2019 would be a year in which PlayStation crouches so that it can leap higher next year. The whole industry is doing the same right now, and Gamescom 2019 was just an extension of what we saw at E3 earlier in the summer. Make no mistake, though, good things are coming – it’s too quiet for them not to be.
How did you feel about Gamescom 2019 overall? Do you feel like developers are holding back ahead of the next-gen console announcements? Practice your German in the comments section below.
Comments 11
Considering how well Kojima has aged, you'd think he would be a bit more eager to get his hair cut by someone who isn't his mother.
2020 is definitely shaping up to be an epic year for gaming. CyberPunk, FF VII, Watchdogs all early in the year (probably TLOU 2) and can’t wait to discover what’s coming for next gen.
Going to be spending most of this year trying to clear my backlog.
Oh and Ghost of T.
Ah yes, the entire industry.
Which is why Japanese developers are jumping hand over fist for Switch games.
Now in terms of Western companies oh my god its like a desert. Its obvious whats happening.
@Frigate As it was revealed long before the PS5 was even a thing, Ghost has always intended to be a PS4 game. Whether it pulls a ‘Last Guardian’ and jumps to the next gen who can say. I personally think it’s definitely coming out next year, either as a launch title with the PS5 or a few months earlier as the current gens last big game. I firmly believe it’s going to be the latter, but would only be slightly surprised if they go the other route.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Sony (and other publishers) handle the generation change with backwards compatibility. Will we get patches for PS4 games to improve them for free or remasters sold as separate games again. I personally hope it’s the former as it would be a great way to keep someone invested in the brand and more likely to buy the new console.
You already have CryEngine and UNreal being updated with RayTracing. You know things are happening in the background.
And perfect timing. 4K TV sales are booming, and the PS5 will be the perfect companion. Good times.
'The games well is, well, well ...'
Oooooh, I need more coffee...
@Agramonte Ray tracing isn't ready yet not for a few more years your looking at maybe 5 years before it will be perm implemented into games. Nvidia just tried to make a fast buck on it because it's RTX cards ain't all that and there's no games that hardly support it STILL. When it's on it can give you a performance drain on games and with pcs it will be slowly getting better over the years but consoles it's pointless adding it as well as going for 8k Res
i think ghosts of tsushima will be a PS4 game. it's been 4-5 years in the making, and if it gets released with PS5, it'd sell 1-2 million at most, compared with potentially how many it might sell with a 110+ million PS4 install base.
it's a problem sony will have for PS5 launch regarding its exclusive games. i just can't see a HZD2, or anything like that being used as a launch title.. releasing an 8m+ selling franchise to a 3-4m install base within the first few months doesn't make a whole lot of business sense. i suspect it will go into a tit-for-tat 3rd party marketing dual with MS over the big cross-gen titles that will release on PS4 and PS5 next autumn.
@BearsEatBeets - i suspect it will be neither, and PS4 games will work 'as is', and i see little point in remastering PS4 games so soon. if there are any remasters, i'd expect them to be from previous generations, which wouldn't be backwards compatible anyway.
@Nakatomi_Uk RTX problem is price... it has been from day 1. Nvidia tried to keep Crypto era prices by pretending you will need the cores for RT. AMD and PS5 will fix that.
RT is part of DX, you do not need an RT cores for it. The CryEngine demo ran on a VEGA56. Metro Exodus shows what can be done - Control and Cyberpunk will bring it to the next level.
PS5 will come at the tail end of 3 years of studios working with the tech. I didn't care for it till I played Metro and BF with it on. Global illumination in next gen will be done with RT.
Just cause 3 and the last remnant remastered.oh yeah.word ☝ up son
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