It’s that time of year again: The big three game companies, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, have announced their plans for this release season. The upcoming months promise new consoles, new games, social network integration and reimagined apps.
Sony announced the release of the PlayStation 4 earlier this year. While there has been a huge amount of speculation about what the system will look like, the only official hardware images that Sony currently has released are the new DualShock 4 controller and the recently developed PlayStation Camera.
The controller has been the topic of many online discussions. The DualShock 4 maintains a similar shape to its predecessors but has the newly added Touch Pad at the top of the controller. This will allow players to interact with games in new ways. The ways that the Touch Pad can be used will vary depending on the game. The biggest feature is the Share Button. This is the first time any gaming system will have the capability to instantly record gameplay and post it online. According to Sony’s press conference from earlier this year, Sony is working with social media networks, including Facebook, to make it possible to instantly share gameplay experiences without needing to edit the recordings.
The PlayStation Camera is essentially Sony’s response to Microsoft’s Kinect. Probably the only difference will be that the PlayStation Camera is better at picking up depth than the Kinect, but, at this point, there really isn’t anything too impressive about another motion-tracking device.
Sony also has a killer line-up of games. They have Bungie, the team who created the “Halo” series, making “Destiny,” a post-apocalyptic first-person shooter. Sony will also bring back a new “InFAMOUS,” as well as a new swash-buckling addition of “Assassin’s Creed,” both on PlayStation 4. A huge and incredibly promising “Watch Dogs” will also be available on the Playstation 4. The player controls a man who has a unique control of the entire city of Chicago and has access to everyone’s private information. All of the games are ridiculously pretty, incredibly detailed and realistic.
Buying games has also changed. Sony will enable players to go to the PlayStation Store and play part of the actual game with all of the full game’s features enabled before deciding to buy it. Before it was just demos, small snippets of games without all of the features enabled, available to players, but now the player will be able to fully experience how a game feels before deciding to buy it.
Nintendo hasn’t had many announcements since the Wii U was released and the production of a new “Super Smash Bros.” and “Legend of Zelda” games were announced. This could be a good thing since Nintendo doesn’t have many big upcoming releases other than “Pikmin 3” and “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.”
Probably the only remotely interesting part of Nintendo’s announced content is “Wii U Panorama View.” It seems like Google Maps for the Wii U. It’ll be like the player is standing in the middle of the selected area and can look around the area by moving the GamePad around the room. Google has even taken interest in this prospect and has actually added Google Maps to the Wii U. With the Wii U Panorama View, the user can look at locations on the street level – think of the little guy on map applications that can be dragged to a map to see the street view. This will essentially be street view on the GamePad. Nintendo may be kind of lackluster this season, but hopefully that means there will be good games coming out next year.
Surprisingly enough, Microsoft has almost no information available about their upcoming system, except that there is a system in production. Everything has been pretty hush-hush regarding the system, nicknamed “Xbox 720” by fans. There has been speculation as to the appearances of both the system and the controller, as well as to what its actual name will be. Fans have been creating their own images of what the system and controller could be.
For competition’s sake, Microsoft’s new system will need a similar level of immersive gaming like the Wii U, which will probably take the form of something similar to the Kinect. It will also have to contend with the graphics and gameplay promised in the PlayStation 4. Hopefully, the silence about the system is Microsoft’s way of saying that they have something so good in the works that there isn’t any time to release information to the public. Knowing Microsoft, there will most likely be a whole new slew of social media and online gaming capabilities. Since Sony has essentially shown its hand, Microsoft will be the company to watch.
Based on what is currently known about this release season, Sony is set to completely blow Nintendo and Microsoft out of the water, but it seems that all three companies are going to have a good year. With the movement to mostly online purchasing of games, it is likely that all of the companies will be releasing many more games strictly available in their respective online stores. 2013 is apparently the year of the socially integrated, beautifully rendered and immersive games.
Christian Moberg is a junior studying Japanese and computer science.
