@get2sammyb - Yeah, something about online with EA and MS is well amiss. I dont think anybody at MS actually knows how things will work in 6 months. Very fluid situation.

Sony needs to be upfront and honest, which will probably never happen though.

@rastamadeus - are we talking US or worldwide sales? My initial reaction was you were way off, but then it dawned on me Microsoft - ie Xbox360 - was last this gen (latest numbers I could find Wii 99 PS3 77 Xbox 76 million) so why wouldn't it be last next gen also? Though it will probably win US.

My biggest issue right now (which may be true, o rnot, depending on what MS is saying at any given moment) is 1 game per ACCOUNT. My family has 4 accounts on our PS3 - 1 per person - and if each person had to pay to play a game? That's beyond anti-piracy, that's just frakin' nuts. And mandatory install would be a real big pain if you have to wait 20 minutes before you can start to play any game. They are going way out of their way to make this thing annoying. They should have just done away with discs entirely. But even then, 1 account per game? Nonsense.

Also, maybe it's not big in the EU, but everyone keeps talking about Gamestop and "used" games. I'm not a huge Gamestop fan, but I RENT a lot of games from both Redbox and Gamefly. I haven't seen a single article use the term "rent". Not one. That could be a problem, even in the US, with a Redbox on every corner.

I'm guessing 7 years ago, before the PS3 prices were revealed, a Wii vs. PS3 poll would have had similar results w/ PS3 in the lead. I know the PS3 has caught up now, but it took awhile.

@KALofKRYPTON - "I for one wouldn't want an audio system without optical!"

My audio system has 1 OPTICAL in, it doesn't have HDMI in or out.
I bought a $6 3-way optical switch from Monoprice for my PS3, cable box and eventual WiiU (which has worked well for the past 9 months though having to manually switch it is a nuisance). But the WiiU doesn't have optical out. And it doesn't have ethernet, and I already gave my Wii USB ethernet adapter to my sister, who lives 70 miles away.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10423&cs_id=1042302&p_id=2946&seq=1&format=2

Nice read - its like you took all my earlier posts and combined them into a coherent essay (Mostly on NL today.)

I wouldnt put too much emphasis on 1 reveal. At last years E3 Sony spent way to much time on Wonderbook, which is practically non-existant, yet PS3 is fine. Nintendo opened with Pikmin 3 which still wont be out for a few more months. Its a 1 hr. unveil, which showed the big ugly system, which Sony didnt. Does thst mean the PS4 wont have a console?

Im not buying 1, probably ever, but A LOT of gamers said they would never buy a Wii (Wii, not WiiU) and it was the #1 selling console last gen. MS may be onto something.

I remember when blogs always had the newest entry at the top, this is 3rd down. (NL has been like this lately as well.)

EA married MS.
EA has affairs with Sony.
EA visits Nintendo in the prison shower.

Anybody consider the fact that MS deep pockets and console game rules just means all multiplat games will be written to the DDR3 spec so multiplat games won't actually look or run any better on the PS4? See Bayonetta.
Of course Sony 1st and 3rd party exclusives may be better, but being exclusives we wont have any comparisons.

Ild say thats a PS4 win.

For Microsoft its the usual "buy the rumour, sell the news" as you alluded to.

So does Kinect only have 1 lens now? I thought it had 2 for better depth perception before. And now Sony has 2. I need that guy and those kids from the ATT commercial. Infinity times infinity. pooooohh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZh105_r2Qk

Props to Sony and MS for including both ethernet and optical. I'm currently using both on my PS3. Wi-fi reception is lousy in that room and my sound system doesn't have HDMI in (yes I'm aware it's time to update.). I still haven't purchased a WiiU and those 2 omissions aren't helping it's case any.

DDR3 is probably fast enough to check fantasy league stats.

I liked the dogs. PETA is gonna be upset though if one sniffs a bomb and then blows up in little bloody pieces all over the screen.

That underwater shot makes me want a new Endless Ocean: Blue World. One of the few Wii games that had online multiplayer with WiiSpeak support. Maybe the WiiU can get one. Which by itself would make 1 more game that I want than the X1 showed today. About what I expected though. E3 is the games unveil.

I don't think the reveal revealed anything except that MS is going after the fantasy football crowd. I don't know how big that market is compared to gamers but some of those fantasy players are way obsessed. They also mentioned the Superbowl, and had Roger Goddel, so this could become the Bloomberg terminal of sports news junkies. Bad timing on Tyson Chandler though.

On to E3. where the big 3 will hopefully all unveil some games. And pricing.

It looks like a 10 year old laptop.

They should just make it look like a Dalek and be done with it. Preferably life size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek

OK, it's better looking than the XBox One. (Hey, I need something to do while I eat lunch.)

@get2sammyb "— that's hilarious!"

Nintendo probably doesn't think so

It went from being called "Panopticon" to "Freedom Wars"? Can't say I'm in favor of that change.

I wonder if that girl in the video w/ the blue eye winds up getting some Kos-mos like superpower. There's always 1 in everyone of these games, right?

I HATE that PS4 font. Now I have "Walk Like an Egyptian" going thru my head. That's not official is it?

The blue PS logo and line on the black do slook nice though.

That's a little subtle for my tastes. I prefer the big PS4 box that's been on the US Amazon Wii U page since Feb. (b/c Amazon doesn't actually carry the Wii U.)

http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Wii-Console-Black-Deluxe-U/dp/B009AGXH64/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369101098&sr=8-1&keywords=wiiu

PS - It's 2 in the morning, go to bed.

That video still gives me a headache, though that post has 51 replies - the most since the merger I think - so, my body is ready. Wait, wrong blog

@get2sammyb - Yeah, apparently it's Tuesday, not Monday, shows how much I care. I just want to know the low lights.

"Red Dawn".

Just seems like a natural for a 4-player FPS team game. I know there are more than enough military FPS in the world but playing as teenage kids w/ make-shift weapons against the Russians (1980 film version for corny evil empireness) could be both fun and exhilarating. Wolverines!!

Given your premise that the Sony unveil was more widespread than the lead up to Xbox's unveil I think there might be a reason for that. Or several.

Sony is planning on living or dieing w/ the PS3/PS4 combo.

Microsoft is dealing w/ Win 8 fallout - see Win 8.1 fall update.
Trying to sell it's phones.
Trying to sell it's tablets.
Trying to build it's app store.
Fighting off blame for the entire PC industry imploding.

Sony wants to be know as an entertainment company but Microsoft still needs to focus on it's business enterprises. Plus maybe Microsoft is correct and Sony peaked too soon?

Sammy, how much coverage are you going to give the event Monday? I don't expect moment by moment but if you give a summary after I won' tbother googling it. I have no interest in buying one but I'm curios about piracy prevention and always on, and if it will have any games or just be an HBOgo portal

I would definitely use it if it let me navigate the store.

PS4 on. Enter PSN store. Download "Last of Us" demo. No, you can't have my password, it's a freakin' free demo, just download the darn thing already.

FYI - that last line was a joke based on an earlier blog posting.

@Sanquine - I didn't have any problem with your english that time, just the out of nowhere Nintendo fanboy comment. [You might now want to read my Vita comment, it's all about the WiiU.]

And I know this game isn't about the infected any more than Uncharted was about those Nazi monsters in the basement, it just would have been nice if Naughty Dog were able to create a game without them. Though I'm not an idiot, I know what sells. Parasite Eve was my 1st, and one of my favorite, PS1 games BTW, so I'm not opposed to the genre.

@get2sammyb - I know the Move games won't work, we already discussed this awhile back, I was trying to point out that they shouldn't advertise "all games" if some of them aren't going to work. What if your "favorite" games are Just Dance or EyePet or Zumba or whatever their PS4 equivalents will be? I just think they need to be careful how they word it.

Did you know Nintendo had to pull 1 of it's EU WiiU commercials for advertising you can play your games off-screen b/c not all games are actually playable?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-16-moderately-misleading-wii-u-ad-removed

@Sanquine - huh?

@TheRealBatman - "Without the infected, the game wouldn't be scary. So taking them out would pretty much just make it a prettier Uncharted."

Guess that's what I was hinting at, yeah. Though "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Saw" and their ilk would disagree about needing zombies for scary, humans can be plenty scary on their own. I don't recall Stephen King putting zombies in "The Stand" - which this game seems to closely resemble - but most people would consider that scary as well.

But will the game continue to DL while you're playing? It's been awhile but I was under the impression DL would stop while I was playing a game. I certainly wouldn't want to be trying to play a game this graphically intensive while my HDD was DL the rest of the game. Sounds like a bad idea.

All games? How would this work with Move games? I mean there will be an Eye in every PS4 box, right? So Move games, yes? I don't see the Vita working w/ any PS4 Wonderbook titles.

So nobody actually came up with any replacement ideas? They aren't going to leave that $10 - $15 million laying around.

2 ideas off the top of my head:

EA Online - $50 per year for an account for ALL of EAs games, regardless of format - PS3/4, Xboxen, PC (No WiiU as has been reported EA is not making a single game for WiiU, maybe this is why?)

EA Game Pass - It's like "online pass" only it isn't in the box. When you go to play the game online you'll just pay them, maybe like WOW $5 per month or something.

Probably some combination of the 2 so EA can advertise to it's customers, "Your choice: Pay only $5 per month per game, or for only $50 play any game you want for as long as you want!!"

EA created Origin and has had a falling out w/ Nintendo for reasons as yet unknown. And you don't get to be the most evil company in the world 2 years running by all of a sudden turning around and playing nice w/ your customers.

In closing as usual, E3 for more info.

@TheRealBatman - The PS3 was supposed to be around for 10 years but the PS4 is still coming out 7 years later.

No hardware company can afford to go 10 years without a major refresh.

@Kayoss - "Whats a HoloDeck?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodeck

Besides the stupidity and lack of business decorum that is the US PSN not even having a set time each Tuesday - which has been this way from the beginning - my biggest issues is demos. FREE demos which require me to hunt for and put in my password and jump thru several other screens. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother w/ demos anymore, too much hassle. They should be first and foremost on the store and should just start downloading when you click on them - all demos are free, just make a section of the store where things are downloaded w/o passwords.

Somewhat related - anybody remember the promise of PS+ and pre-arranged DLs? Why can't I tell the store up to a week in advance when a demo comes out just DL it? I'll even type in my password 3 days in advance if it means when I wake up in the morning my DL is ready to play.

"The only real disappointment is that enemies still fail to fall in a realistic manner,"

The only real disappointment for me happens at about 1:!4 in that trailer. Up to that point it looks like a serious drama akin to "The Road" or "The Day After" - OK The Day After was a bad made for Tv movie but at the time it was seriously disturbing - but then it turns into "Silent Hill". Or Resident Evil or The Walking Dead or countless other zombie games. OK, technically they aren't zombies, they're infested or whatever, but I would have been more impressed if they could have pulled off the game without them. Does Tomb Raider have blood splattering monsters? Maybe I'll just wait for Beyond: Two Souls, nobody has ever made a good Akira videogame.

If those are in game nobody is going to be in any rush to get a PS5 in 5 years.

Well unless the PS5 turns your living room into a Holodeck.

They should at least spend as much time on Vita this year as Wonderbook last year. And please, no Wonderbook 2.

I cant imagine they'll need to spend too much time on PS3 as we already know about Last of Us and Beyond Two Souls and GT6, and Ubisoft will cover Watch_Dogs and AC4 and Rayman Legends, EA will cover their big games, and GTA5 and Destiny can cover themselves. How many more big games does the PS3 need to have unveiled this year?

@rastamadeus - "You really think Sony can afford to not release all Vita games overseas with the console in the mess it is?"

I really think Sony should have lowered the price for the Vita by now in the west like they did in Japan, but Sony didn't care what I thought.
I really thought they should have gone w/ SD cards instead of their overly expensive proprietary stuff, but again they didn't listen.
I think this game is going to have a lot of dialogue in Japanese that will need to be translated and Sony may not spend the money for a translation to sell a few copies on Vita in the west. I'ld like to see it, but again I don't think Sony cares what I think.

And according to Sammy, who wrote the article - "There’s no word on systems just yet, ..."
So we're discussing a game that hasn't even been announced for the Vita yet, so discussing territories is probably a bit premature. I'ld like it on the PS3, but Sony hasn't asked me yet.

That looked so good I can't imagine it ever getting a western release.

I don't think the game is about the monsters, the trailer mostly looked like the trailer for Godzilla: Final Wars. And while Godzilla did get more screen time in that film he's typically relegated to the last 15 minutes of his movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlVkrtR9Vo

The photo reminded me a lot of Neir, and I could see this game taking place during the opening scene time frame in that game, but the monsters kind of did away with that.

It's hard to imagine what's going on in the Sony boardrooms, or wherever these decisions are being made. Are they spooked by the low WiiU sales and afraid of the same fate for the PS4, not to mention their own lackluster Vita sales; are they too worried about what Microsoft is going to do, or not do; have they been hit by sticker shock after bumping up the 4GB of RAM to 8GB?

It kind of feels like a company that is unsure of what to do w/ a new system other than have it out at the same time as their #1 rival. Which is still better than Nintendo which just didn't do anything game or marketing wise w/ the WiiU.

I still feel like a part of the puzzle is missing, something that will be unveiled at E3. Something important has to be unveiled at E3, no?

"Greatness awaits" reminds me of the NY Mets (American baseball team FYI) 2007 slogan - "Your season has come". History lesson - after assembling a great team and making the playoffs in 2006, only to have that season end with Carlos Beltran looking at a curveball 3rd strike following Endy Chavez catch, now known as "The Curse of The Catch" by Mets fans - the Mets ended 2007 by historically blowing a 7 game lead w/ 17 games remaining and haven't been back to the playoffs since. It's been 1 long steady decline.

So, if the PS4 goes the way of the PSPgo, I'm blaming the slogan.

Is anybody else surprised this game was announced just 6 months before release? I thought GT was one of those 18 month lead in games getting announced at E3 the year before it's release?

Makes me think Sony must have something new and big to announce at E3 to help w/ PS4 sales this holiday. They can't have a 1 hour presentation just to pull a towel off of the console. I want to play Knack and inFamous: 2nd Son and hopefully someday The Last Guardian but I'm not buying a $400 system to play them.

Does Assassins Creed really belong w/ COD, Madden and FIFA? Halo maybe, but AC?

If the US PS+ is trailing the EU by a month then maybe I'll re-subscribe for my birthday in July.

Do we know the Kinectbox is launching in Europe in 2013 though? Maybe Sony hasn't announced anything b/c they want to know what the competition is doing first?
The Xbox360 dominance has more to do w/ price and timing - a 1 year lead - than anything else. Launch at the same time and price and the PS4 should be fine. If Kinectbox doesn't launch in Europe until 2014, Sony doesn't need to rush the PS4.

Also, judging by all the WiiU sitting on store shelves, Sony should be able to build enough PS4 to ship some stock to Europe. I'm confident the PS4 will sell better than the WiiU, especially after the holidays, but it won't be constantly sold out. The other regions can spare some stock.

Nice article.

It really is a double negative b/c you cant use one of the probably half dozem micro SD cards you have laying around since they yet sgain made their own propriatary format but that new format is way overpriced compared to micro SD cards. Just uneccassary and wrong.

Of course the PS4 hype from Feb. has died down, it's been months and we live in a 15 minutes of fame society. How long is the hype from a 1 day presentation supposed to last?

But the hype died down due to time, the fact that MS is having it's own presentation now has nothing to do with it, the hype was dieing down regardless of what MS has to say. E3 is the head to head, who's hype outlasts the other from a static starting point will be important.

I didn't like it personally - rapid cuts and bass music give me agita - but I still appreciate that it was well made and probably better than anything Sony is going to come out with. I can't imagine people would really want a glowing neon bar around their home console, but the sleek black curves looked good.

As for what the PS4 will really look like, I'd like a flat top w/ built in induction charging so I can just put my controller down when I'm done playing and it will charge. Room for 2 controllers would be nice. That "phat' curved PS3 top has got to go, and that sliding slim-er PS3 top is horrible also.

1 really minor quibble -

About 30 seconds into the video when he's shopping and those HUGE WHITE RECTANGLES blot out half the screen when he's shopping, I would have preferred him just looking down into the case at the actual items.

Time for "Fun w/ Statistics":

"The respondents rated the console at an average of 75 out of 100, which seems reasonable to us."

I think 75% is a pretty good number for OWNERSHIP. Sony's problem is getting people to BUY the system in the first place. Those who bought it are probably enjoying it.

(The same could probably be said about the WiiU. Most people who own 1 seem to really be enjoying it, but there are a lot more people who would want to own 1 but don't yet due to a lack of current top notch software.)

Having good ratings from your customers is better than bad ratings, which is probably why Sony had that "Talk your friends into buying a Vita and we'll give you whatever it was" campaign. But it's still a small install base.

Maybe they'e waiting to see which system The Last Guardian comes out on before they make a decision.

They could release FFX-2 HD on the PS3 w/o the last missions and then the PS4 FFX-2 HD-er Shareable version on PS4 w/ the added dungeon.

@get2sammyb - "I really want to like this, but I think the art direction is awful."

So says the man who wants Mincecraft on the Vita

BTW, my kids love Minecraft, but every time my wife sees the kids playing it she's all "arrgh, my eyes". She has a very low tolerance for ugly.

Do people not like the way this looks b/c it's a CG cartoon w/ a World of Warcraft color scheme, or is it more subtle, like how Dreamworks' "Monsters vs. Aliens" looks like a direct-to-DVD version of Pixar's "The Incredibles". The characters do look a bit -off- in that "Clone Wars" way. I've never been able to watch Clone Wars but I've never been able to understand why, it just looks... I don't know.

@get2sammyb - you left off the after Minecraft.

"Knack’s struggled to garner the same post-announcement press as its blockbuster peers over the past couple of months."

That's b/c every time you do a PS4 article you always leave it out

"There’s some debate over whether there still a market for those types of titles, though."

If there weren't a market for these types of titles Nintendo would cease to exist, every single one of their games looks like this People would probably even buy it on the Kinectbox as a $15 Kinect game where you smashed stuff moving your body. And Rachet and Clank still sells, I don't see much of a difference. I only wish Insomniac was doing this rather than Fuse so I would feel a lot better about the game.

My biggest concern, it looks like a Pixar movie so it's only 2 hours long, and nobody is going to pay $60 for a 2 hour game. Not one that looks like a cartoon anyway. Still my 2nd most wanted title, after TLG.