You can finally call it annual. Sony’s own conference, tucked away in early December, that gives them time to announce and market whatever they’d like. Last year’s first iteration of this conference saw Uncharted 4 and Street Fighter V for the first time.
2015 was PS4’s year in many ways. They’ve sold an insane amount of consoles and show no signs of stopping. But I’m still wondering where all their first party development has gone. Not to mention the mystery that is Playstation VR. We know it’s coming but no clue when, or for how much. PSX 2015 did little to answer a lot of questions about Sony and Playstation. It wasn’t devoid of announcements though and there’s certainly something here for everyone even if it’s not the biggest news.
PSX kicked off with new looks at two very exciting upcoming games, Uncharted 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
FF7 looks to be running on the FF15 engine. I’m wondering if that’s how Square is making this game cheaper and how many assets are being reused/reincorporated.
New character, new release schedule, and a terrible plug for the season pass. It should go without saying that season passes shouldn’t be sold months in advance. The first set of characters available after release, and earn-able with in game money, will be Alex, Guie, Balrog, Ibuki, Juri, and Urien.
There were a ton of smaller announcements throughout this packed conference. Not every game moved the needle on my excitement meter but here are a few I’m looking forward to.
Double Fine is back at the remaster game. Not only is Maniac Mansion coming but so is Full Throttle. Not to mention Psychonauts 2 announced just the other day and a new Psychonauts standalone prequel for VR.
Team Ninja showed up to show off their new, PS4 exclusive, game Nioh. The trailer looks very Dark Souls-like but also reminds of old school Playstation games. Something about ninjas slicing through enemies screams Sony to me.
Ratchet and Clank looks real nice and got a date, April 12th. That’s only weeks before the movie which comes out on April 28th.
Then Playstation VR had it’s turn. A series of games were announced but honestly it’s all about Mizuguchi, in a vibrating silver suit, played Rez in VR. I’ll do my best to stay positive about VR but their live demo on stage was…broken. The hands didn’t work for one player and the Discs of Tron esque demo was very slow and boring. It looked more like an early tech demo to excite a developer and not something you show on a live stage.
Ni No Kuni 2 was announced, making me look even worse since I’ve still never played that first game. Looks like I’ll be picking up a copy soon and saying goodbye to 80+ hours of my life.
And that was about it. PSX ended on a weird note with Epic showing off their new MOBA which went over like you’d expect, poorly. There was plenty of other announcements like KOF 14, Yakuza 0, 100ft Robot Golf, and a lot more. Overall though none of their announcements really got me excited for Playstation. A lot of the VR games showcased aren’t exclusive which is fine since I don’t know when PS VR is coming or how much it’ll cost me. The absense and lack of fanfare around the PS2 emulation announcement today also makes me think that’s just a new service and quiet way they hope to make money. Weird to see Sony just let that feature die on the vine and settle for a “back of the box” bullet point.
After Uncharted 4 and Street Fighter 5 come out early next year I can’t think of a great reason to have a PS4.
