PS4, Wii U & Xbox - Next Destination E3 2013

Industry heads and Developers alike agree Sony did what they set out to do, reveal the PS4. Sony has gotten the hype swinging into motion as a staggering (estimated) 7.5 million viewers watched the PS4 event at any one time.

Sections of the gaming community were slightly disappointed as to why Sony did not show actual PS4 hardware, but we’ll get into more on that later...

Myself personally, I saw the PS4 Event Meeting as an indicator of what we can expect at E3 2013 more than anything else. All three consoles, not just PS4, but also Microsoft’s Next Box and the already available Nintendo Wii U will have a major presence at the highly anticipated E3 event this June.

Sony wisely did not want to totally share the E3 space revealing 'everything' PS4 for the first time. In fact, Sony were wise to reveal in the way they did, and held back the consoles final design for E3.

These are exciting times and you can be sure of one thing. This will be the biggest most competitive E3 in history, and you better believe it!

Industry experts and developers agree Sony had a well constructed reveal. They didn't show too much and have successfully created intrigue and excitement as to what more we can learn from E3.

EPIC/Blizzard/Bungie/Mark Cerny

The likes of Epic are seemingly more on-board than they were with PS3. I think most gamers will agree, Epic have been more synonymous with the Xbox 360 in this current gen, so something interesting is definitely developing between Sony and Epic. No doubt we’ll learn more in the coming months.

Blizzard appeared briefly, and although they didn’t show anything, Blizzard announced they have a 'Strategic Partnership" indicative of more than Diablo III coming to the console. I’m hoping Titan is planned at some stage for PS4.

Bungie, the creators of the hugely successful Halo series (again another developer synonymous with Xbox 360) made an appearance at the reveal. A newly revitalized Sony seem to be getting the 3rd party developers on board in a big way for PS4.

Sony Japan have commissioned an American (Mark Cerny) as the architect of the PS4. Cerny seemed genuinely excited and enthusiastic as he described in the most humble way, the system and networking capabilities of PS4. This shows a once arrogant Sony has learned from the PS3's launch.

One thing is clear and demonstrative that Sony want to win back the N.American market. I think it's safe to assume Sony have listened to the developers, and that PS4 is extremely important for Sony to take a bigger share of the American Pie.

Microsoft/Nintendo

Don’t think MS or Nintendo are just going to roll over and let Sony have it all their way...

Expect MS to counter Sony’s reveal with one of their own..an XboxEvent2013.com domain has recently been registered, and guessing sometime in april/may is when MS will reveal something Next Box related.

MS’s console is expected to have comparable specs, so the real deciding factor will fall on who has the better exclusives. This gen that was Sony, but we don’t yet know what MS has in stall, we just know they’re coming with something.

Nintendo Wii U will finally have amazing 1st party and 3rd party games that really take advantage of the Wii U console. Admittedly, the Wii U was rushed out of the door with a slim pick of games that (so far) have not really justified owning a Wii U over what is currently available.

However, It's still early days for Nintendo, and I fully expect Nintendo will wow it’s fan base with its own titles such as Mario 3D, Mariokart Wii U, Zelda Next and Metroid Prime. Possibly Nintendo may announce a sequel to Zombie U.

Nintendo certainly have the potential in IP’s.

So we’ve seen Killzone;Shadow Fall, Driveclub, Infamous;Second Son and Capcoms game Deep Down (working title, so not final), all of which at this early stage look phenomenal.

Yes, some games were pre-rendered, some appreared to be running on development kits/PC’s spec’d to PS4 power, but you can’t deny Sony did enough to wet the appetite.

Other than the DualShock 4 controller shown (still not 100% finalized), We still don’t know the PS4’s form factor, so we don’t yet know what the console will look like. Why should
Sony have shown it pre-E3? Not showing it means Sony haven’t overshot their load (Save for E3).

We still await announcements of next gen versions of Uncharted, GT, GOW, Battlefield 4 and at some point we’ll see a PS4 sequel to The Last of Us ...an inevitability if ever there was one.

So to summarize.. I'm totally more interested in what Sony haven't revealed (Hello E3!), than what they did reveal. I am confident Sony will include 90% of the features they are targeting in the PS4.

We now know the console does not have to be connected to the net to play games, we know it will play used games, and we know that Killzone footage was/is realtime, because it was played (very badly) by Jimmy Fallon on his TV talk show.

The Future is looking good for gamers this year on all next generation consoles (including you Wii U). We await Microsoft's response and even more so, cannot wait until E3 2013!