ps4-launch
Latest
Watch Ice-T bully robots in Jimmy Fallon's PS4 demo of The Playroom
The PlayStation 4 returned on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week with a cuter, cuddlier demo in contrast to Killzone: Shadow Fall. Yet it still led to undue physical violence. Some people, like Fallon, just want to play and have fun with the adorable augmented-reality robots of tech demo The Playroom. Then there are people like Fallon's guest Ice-T, who can't resist giving the innocent little androids a boot up the hiney. While the audience was impressed by what The Playroom can do, they reserved their fullest applause for when a poor robot was pelted flat against the screen by the rapper-turned-actor. Don't forget, this guy has starred in fighting games as himself. The Playroom is pre-installed on every PS4, and as you can see it uses the PlayStation Camera in some impressive ways. Check out own less violent hands-on video right here.
Buy PS4 with a year of PS Plus tomorrow, get $10 to spend on PSN
If you're among those buying Sony's brand new home console tomorrow and know you will buy-in on PlayStation Plus for a lengthy period of time, then Sony wants to give you more PSN credit. Those that pick up a brand new PS4 and a year-long subscription to PlayStation Plus tomorrow will receive a $10 PlayStation Store voucher. The $10 coupon is separate from the one packaged with the system, which accompanies a 30-day trial of PlayStation Plus. The deal is only good at physical GameStop and Best Buy locations as well as online through Newegg and is only valid tomorrow, the day the PlayStation 4 is no longer a hunk of hardware you can only read about, but one you get to hold. If you haven't done enough reading about it though, we have plenty of information to prepare you to be a PS4 owner, including our review of the hardware itself.
Joystiq remembers its favorite PlayStation 3 experiences
Tomorrow a new generation begins: The PlayStation 4 arrives. Though the PS3 won't be retired immediately, it will be pushed to the side of our shelves in favor of Sony's new console. To bid an affectionate farewell to the outgoing system, some of the Joystiq staff gathered to recall their favorite memories with the PlayStation 3. Some have fond memories of exclusives, complete franchises, or that action game that refuses to be forgotten. These are just a few of our favorites; of course we can't list them all! (Xav, for instance, wanted to highlight Metal Gear Solid 4, but it's a busy week!) Share your favorites in the comments below while we countdown the start to the next-gen. [Music: The Protagonist - "Pink Fuzz"]
PS4's European launch commercial is for the players
Sony is fond of live-action trailers for all things PlayStation 4, and this advertisement for the European launch of Sony's next-gen console is no different. Well, there is, because this time the narrator has a cool accent, and those are always nice. The PS4 will launch in Europe on November 29.
Sony president undaunted by 'mixed' PS4 reviews
The past few days have delivered a flood of PlayStation 4 launch game reviews, many of which have been less than flattering. Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida remains unfazed. "Yeah, it's disappointing to see some of the low scores," Yoshida admitted in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "I haven't spent enough time reading reviews, but I would characterize them as mixed," he added optimistically. In an attempt to partially explain away the lower-than-expected review scores, Yoshida cites an overworked games media. "[W]ith this launch there are lots of games coming out, so the media must be very busy going through the games quickly, and especially since the online functionality wasn't ready until in the last couple days. So we have to look at how much time they spend on what aspect of the games and how that may be contributing to some of the lower scores." "It's disappointing but I don't think it's worrisome for the launch of the system," he added. Finally, Yoshida offers a personal defense of his company's offerings. "I've played through all of our games, Killzone, Knack and Resogun, and I totally enjoyed playing through these games. I'm now on my second run of Knack and Resogun at a higher difficulty - these games really grow on you when you play more," Yoshida said. "I'm very confident that once you purchase these games and play, you'll be happy that you've done so."
Joystiq Live Review: The Playroom on PS4 [Update: Watch the replay!]
We're rolling out PlayStation 4 review coverage all the way through the launch on Nov. 15. Check out more reviews and news here! Update: The live stream is over, but you can watch the replay right here. The PlayStation 4 is only a day away in North America, and it's bringing with it some pretty cool innovations like built-in live streaming. To that end, we've decided to do some innovating ourselves: We're going to review a PS4 game ... live. Specifically, we'll be reviewing the built-in PlayStation Camera game, The Playroom. Join us here at 2 p.m. Eastern to see the review. If you want to participate in the live broadcast, we'll be answering your Playroom and PS4 questions on Joystiq's Twitch channel.
Day-one patch bumps CoD: Ghosts campaign to 1080p on PS4
Retail copies of Call of Duty: Ghosts will require a patch on PlayStation 4 in order to fix resolution problems that stem from a "configuration issue" in the game's single player campaign. Players that dive into the game's single-player missions without the update would encounter a campaign mode that is upscaled from 720p as opposed to the game's expected 1080p resolution. "Call of Duty: Ghosts runs natively at 1080p on the PlayStation 4. There was a configuration issue in the retail version on single player mode only," Activision told Joystiq in a statement. "This has been addressed with a day one software update. People will be able to download the day one update when PlayStation 4 launches in their territory and play at native 1080p." Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin said in late October that the game runs at a native resolution of 1080p (1920x1080) on PS4 and that the developer "optimized each console to hit 60 FPS and the game looks great on both."
PS4 via Vine: Game storage, DualShock features, power button
As a supplement to today's PlayStation 4 review, if you're a follower of our @Joystiq Twitter escapades, you've certainly seen us pointing out PlayStation 4 features and answering questions via Vine about the console. After the break, we've posted the collection of today's clips. If you've got a question that we can answer in only a few seconds, leave a comment below or feel free to ask @Sliwinski direct. We'll continue updating our review of the console as we spend more time with it before Friday's North American launch.
Take a tour of the PS4's Video, Music Unlimited services
It may not play your old Spin Doctors CDs (yet), but the PlayStation 4 does offer a number of other media functions, all of which are laid out in this video tour of Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services.
Plan ahead: Install PS4 firmware v1.5 to a USB stick right now
If you're getting a PS4 this Friday, here's a handy tip: Copy the necessary version 1.5 firmware update onto a USB stick and install it on your console that way. It's probably not the best idea to try and access Sony's servers while swarms of other people are trying to do the same thing on launch day. Simply head over to this PlayStation page and download the firmware. Then go into your USB stick and create a "PS4" folder and an "UPDATE" folder inside of that. Now it's simply a matter of copying the 308MB in files over to your USB stick and you're good to go. Speaking of launch, today our PS4 review went live, as did reviews on some of the more high-profile launch games like Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, Resogun and Contrast. We'll continue to roll out coverage on the launch of the PS4, so keep an eye on this link for new content as it's made available.
Sony's Tretton projects 3 million PS4s sold by year's end
Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton reiterated his sales projections for the PlayStation 4 in a recent interview with Bloomberg, asserting that three million PS4 consoles will be sold by the end of 2013. Tretton additionally believes that PS4 console sales will surpass five million units by March 2014. Tretton bases his projections on the fact that the PS4 will launch in 32 countries by the end of the year, arriving in a broader selection of markets and at a cheaper cost than Microsoft's competing Xbox One. Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst Colin Sebastian backed up Tretton's estimates, projecting that Sony will sell three million PS4s this year. "This is a marathon, not a sprint, but getting out to a nice start is a good thing," Tretton said. "That hurdle has been cleared. We're very, very confident we're in great shape."
Resogun review: Save the last humans, hopefully
We're rolling out PlayStation 4 review coverage all the way through the launch on Nov. 15. Check out more coverage here! The blocky green humans of Resogun, who look like they've been peeled off a men's room door, sometimes forget to thank you for a rescue well done. The thought may cross their little starstruck minds as they cartwheel through the air, catapulted from your spaceship into a column of safe light, but their ability to utter it is lost in a whirlwhind of multicolored missile trails, alien spaceships and arcs of vibrant electricity. Perhaps they are simply speechless, as time slows and their view rotates through a kaleidoscope of pristine destruction en route to – "Human lost." Oh, whoops, guess I threw that one into a lake. The rescue capsule was over there, wasn't it?
Contrast review: Fleeting shapes in shadow (PS4)
We're rolling out PlayStation 4 review coverage all the way through the launch on Nov. 15. Check out more coverage here! Contrast is a short, sweet game about a girl and a friend thriving in shadow. You play as Dawn, an elegant, exceptionally elongated woman visible only to Didi, a girl growing up in what appears to be a city from the 1920s. It's hard to say precisely, because the city you inhabit is a crooked, vaudevillian variant where the streets are always wet and a wrong turn terminates in a bottomless limbo. The shadows on the wall tell stories of the real world, projected into your dimension of shadow. How the raven-haired, provocatively dressed Dawn came to inhabit this place is a story best left for play, where it unfurls in snippets of dialog, posters and notes that find their way to your world. It's an earnest and mostly successful attempt by Compulsion Studios to explain something that need not be explained – the game's noir-ish embellishment and jazzy heartbeat are enough to draw you in. Didi's story is more personal, painting her as a loving daughter helping a bumbling dad, who makes one bad deal after another with unsavory types and suspicious magicians. As Didi wanders the streets, helping her father solve problems and reconnect with his songstress wife, we see that it's Dawn that makes the magic happen.
Killzone: Shadow Fall review: Goodbye, gray sky
We're rolling out PlayStation 4 review coverage all the way through the launch on Nov. 15. Check out more coverage here! This is not a review of futuristic architecture, thank God, but if it were I would have reams to write about Vekta City, the angular gem that serves as the heart and showcase of a big PlayStation 4 exclusive, Killzone: Shadow Fall. Its skyscrapers form an endless field of crystals and carbon, mantled in blue skies and fly-by lens flares. The game will let you admire the view from time to time, even with its finger extended and ready to prod – you've got some shootin' to do, remember. This is a peculiar kind of disappointment, because it speaks highly of the environmental fidelity in Killzone: Shadow Fall. The guns are the only thing approaching pollution in Vekta's pristine metropolis, which conveys far greater depth than is available when bullets are whizzing by. Then again, it's not as if "Killzone" is dishonest about its choice of genre – and the action is worthwhile when the shooting is as boisterous and tinged with tact as it is here. Your options in combat are grafted to your status as shadow marshall, a covert operative of the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance. Clandestine employment grants you access to the OWL, a cute but weaponized aerial vehicle that naps on your back. It also permits you to travel between Vekta City and New Helghan, a noxious, industrialized tumor of a city, fit for the Helghast refugees that lost a war and their planet.
Knack review: 32-bit hero
We're rolling out PlayStation 4 review coverage all the way through the launch on Nov. 15. Check out more coverage here! Knack is a sentient golem magically drawn together from shiny bits, baubles and two thick eyebrows. Each part of Knack's body, whether it's a hand, leg or his bell-shaped head, is made out of mined relics, which in his world are also used to power cartoonish cars, airplanes and generators. A real-world equivalent to Knack and his physical composition, then, would be a creature made entirely of some other combustible, unearthed fuel – like coal. This should give you some idea as to what kind of message this PS4 game will send as a Christmas gift. Knack's pleasant wrapping is deceptive, and sadly indicative of how far its good intentions diverge from the execution. It shines in the opening, in which Knack walks through a series of test rooms, demonstrating his pugilistic prowess against adorable, antagonistic Roombas. His inventor, Dr. Vargas, narrates as you play, explaining how Knack can increase his size if he gathers more relics, or blast his parts out in a destructive whirlwind. Sure, the laboratory is utterly sterile, nothing more than a series of squares, cordoned off until you smash a handful of enemies and move on. But it works as an introduction, and you sense greater possibilities waiting just outside the bare walls of this tutorial.
Sony holding PS4 event at The Standard High Line in NYC, consoles available
Sony announced this morning that it will have 444 additional PlayStation 4 units available for sale at The Standard, High Line hotel in New York City at midnight on November 15. The line for them starts right now and only credit cards will be accepted (repeat: no cash!). And, you know, wear layers, because it's cold. "Activities will include an arcade where fans can play games on up to 30 kiosks. Additionally, the entire north side and east sides of the hotel will transform into a gigantic interactive lighting installation," Jennifer Clark, senior director of product publicity wrote on the PlayStation Blog this morning. "Starting Thursday, images depicting the creative process of developing video games will be projected on the entire north side of the 18-story building." All the festivities culminate in tomorrow night's PS4 All Access: Greatness Awaits launch event at 11PM Eastern.
PS4 disc install trials: Knack playable in seconds, Killzone under 3 minutes
At a New York event yesterday, Sony demonstrated install speeds - the time from the point the disc is inserted, install is initiated and play can begin - for retail versions of two PS4 launch games: Knack and Killzone: Shadow Fall Knack, the action-adventure game from PS4 architect Mark Cerny, will take only tens of seconds before play can begin after priming the installation, Kotaku reports. Killzone: Shadow Fall will take a bit longer to reach play, Polygon reports, because there is an unskippable introduction movie and mandatory profile set-up. Guerrilla Games Managing Director Hermen Hulst told Polygon it takes under three minutes total to get into gameplay. Sony outlined the launch limitations of its PS4 console last month. All retail PS4 games will have to install data to the console's 500GB hard drive, which can be manually swapped out should the need for more space arise. The PS4 won't let users store data on an external hard drive or memory stick.
Don't Starve, Binding of Isaac free with PlayStation Plus when they launch on PS4
Don't Starve will be free with PlayStation Plus membership when the game launches in "early January," a Sony representative confirmed today at the PlayStation 4 review event, currently being held in New York City. The critically acclaimed survivorcraft will launch on PS4 with all content available at that time in the PC version. Sony expects the PC and PS4 versions will update in parallel from that point forward. "A Vita native version with cross-save is coming a couple months after the PS4 version," the rep also told us. Either way, the PS4 version will support remote play, so it'll be functional on the Vita when it launches for PS4. We were also told that The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, due out in early 2014 on Steam, PS4 and Vita, will also be free to PlayStation Plus members when it launches. Update: Don't Starve developer Klei informs it's focusing on the PS4 version and remote play functionality at this time. A PS Vita native version is still being explored. Also, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth will receive a simultaneous native launch on PS3, PS4 and Vita.
Not every headshot will make it to PlayStation 4 profile pics
Oh, cruel fate! The PlayStation Camera – previously known as the PlayStation Eye – can't be used to create a PlayStation Network profile picture for the next-gen PlayStation 4. Although having your real name displayed is happening, the only way to pull real-world photos of yourself for the profile pic is through Facebook integration. We speculate it has to do with Facebook's anatomical detecting algorithms. For those who don't have a Facebook account (or don't want to use it), they'll have a selection of Sony avatars available, like things are now for PlayStation 3 and Vita. Also, if somebody wants to be your PSN friend, searching by your real name (even if you've selected to use your real name) won't be an option. To find you, they'll need your PSN ID. So, please try to keep it simple. You know who you are, xXxZOMGPUPPAYZxXx. [Image: Brian A Jackson via Shutterstock]
PlayStation 4 user experience highlights (so far)
Sony's NYC review event for PlayStation 4 today provided some fresh details and highlights about the user experience the console will provide when it launches this Friday. As chronicled by Engadget, the top of the new hotness list is actual party chat for the PlayStation Network. By that, we mean the PlayStation 4 supports chat rooms of eight, allowing groups to jump from game to game together – even folks on Vita can join the soiree. Other tidbits include a double-tap of the PS Home button will quickly switch between two active apps. The PlayStation Store (at this time) is organized in a clean rail. Trophies now have a worldwide "rarity" metric attached to them, so you can tell how many people have unlocked the achiev... accomplishment. Another huge addition for PS4 is the ability to charge controllers when the system is in standby. No more keeping the console on! Finally, a nice feature is the "play as a guest" mode, which allows a user to access their content on a foreign box. It will also remove all your personal data (like credit card info) at logout. If you have two PS4s in the house, both can be signed in under a single PSN ID at once – but no more. We'll have more details on the PlayStation 4 user interface when it's finalized and available for testing later this week.
