Gadgetory

welcome to top shelf I'm David Pierce and I'm here in sunny smoggy June gloomy Los Angeles we're here on the floor of III it's the biggest video game convention in the world and this promise to be one of the biggest ones ever microsoft and sony are showing off all kinds of new stuff for their consoles nintendo has all kinds of convincing to do it seems like every game maker on the planet is around here somewhere showing off all the games that's coming out with this year Microsoft kicked off the week with a huge press conference showing us game after game designed to run on the new xbox one we saw the TV and video game mashup quantum break Forza 5 and it's drive at ours battlefield 4 and it's crazy exploding of everything in the world and many many other games there's even a new halo we also saw a lot of smart glass which figures heavily in bday Xbox one plans plus a new design for the xbox 360 and most importantly we got a price the Xbox one is coming in November for 499 dollars sony came out later on monday at another huge arena in LA and just started taking shots at microsoft the ps4 which we finally got to look at and play with will cost just three hundred ninety nine dollars and you'll be able to sell your used games and the ps4 won't check to make sure your online oh and sony has a great store for indie developers sorry I microsoft sony did roll out a line of a great looking games to from the amazing open-world shooter destiny to watch dogs where your primary weapon is your cell phone so nice pitching the ps4 as the console for real gamers while Microsoft's trying to be every entertainment device to every the rest of the week was littered with great looking games we couldn't play because they're not ready and other great looking games we couldn't play because the lines were way too long nintendo's new mario kart game is fun but its mario kart game battlefield is ambitious but not yet what we hope it will be and fifa 14 does look just as great as we felt III is really only the beginning this is just stage setting for the next few months and especially for this holiday season when gamers all over the world can finally get their hands on the x is one and ps4 and for every answer we've gotten this week about the new consoles we've only found more questions so we sent our own Paul Miller to sit down with Scott road a sony worldwide studios playstation software product development head to get some answers you're launching a new console okay here we are playstation 4 so this is the start of the next gen I'm crazy excited for this year what what do you think defines next-gen what if you didn't know which console was running on or the hardware behind it you saw that games next-gen that games not what would you say that is it to me it's it's about doing more of what we've seen on this generation so it's it's not just there's not some overall technology that's necessarily better but overall the PlayStation 4 is more powerful so for example if you wanted to attach a deeper physics model to every single enemy that was on the screen and you want a higher volume of those you can do that while you're also putting an advanced lighting model on the whole scene all of its bigger and better that's what people are going to notice you guys have gotten this really great perception of being the one for for gamers yeah what is it about the games that that made people walk away from these keynotes and think Sony's games are about gamers and Microsoft doesn't quite get it I think man there's a million ways to answer that question and I think a lot of it is just some of the culture that's come through from from a lot of the leaders in our in our group it starts for me with with shoe who is my boss and is genuinely a gamer I love to play games Adam who was on stage loves to play games so when we talked to devs it we don't go in with a spreadsheet and a calculator and say okay this is the profit margin on this game we're talking about game features and how it relates to movies we've just seen and how it relates to other games and did you see this did you see this mechanic in this game and did you try this not necessarily like game a B and C on PlayStation beat game a B and C on exit or not it's just a bad so overall I think it's a general it's it's what PlayStation stands for I mean again I love to talk about this subject because you can say look at a game like heavy rain when it first came out not a lot of places would approve development on that game because it doesn't quite make sense on the spreadsheet but it advances our medium of games to a place that it hasn't been before the goosebumps right so it's true right it's crazy it's really force blow its toll it's really I mean that right and and when shoe says that he means it and when you know Adam Boyes goes out you know he announces transistor onstage and right today last night I don't get turns out at all I don't have any idea what that is but it but but but you did get that it was that it looked beautiful and different right so the point is the first time he sees that he comes back gift sends me a text give me a call hey you're not going to believe how cool this looks right and that just kind of goes on we have to get this in the family and then dev see that passion in it just becomes a two-way thing what would what happened to motion gaming for you guys it's not really here at the show you talked about at the launch you talked about your technology for the eye but I've always seen one game here fact most of the PlayStation 4's aren't plugged in to an eye and I think what is really a big issue for me is that the the PlayStation 4 is not shipping with the eye as a default well to answer the last question it's it's not something that we wanted to require our customers to purchase it's also not something certainly back to the previous point about about creative vision and kind of freedom on teams it's it's not something we wanted to mandate for every team as well so what kind of taking it one step at a time if there are great ideas that come from great developers either inside or from third parties or from our from from indys from you name it we actually embrace that completely but it's not something that we're going to cram down people's throats how did you guys feel when you got to say that word out loud or I don't know that it's because it's 394 the words and phrases 309 say it's a phrase so absolutely great I mean it was an amazing feeling so you know this plan went nuts absolutely and we went nuts I mean we were kind of Hooten just like everyone else because this plan has been in place for years you know developing a brand new console takes a long time so with a goal that 0 was kind of put in motion about three or four years ago you saw this at the februari event where we talked about how we talked to all the different developers you know what are you liking about the ps3 what what would you like to see changed that's all real all that happened and our goal was to build the most powerful console at a price that was affordable and we set that target at 399 and all the great engineers in Japan mark cerny was leading all those teams everything all came together the game developers all came and said what they wanted we made sure there was you know eight gigs of the fastest Ram out there I mean all these things that developers wanted still manage to do all of that in a machine that was super slick looking and still did it for 3 99 that's why it's something it's a moment that we're very proud of and we were all that was accentuated when our competitors announced morning that it was 499 how did that so no I mean were there high-fives rounding are you kidding me up so so so so like a low fuzz so we were out we were all in rehearsals all day so at the at the sports arena where the the e3 event was the press conference so you know that some people are at the press conference everyone's got looking at Twitter everything's and as soon as it one ounce yeah there's running up and down the aisle woohoo you know makes our announcement that much better so I just wanted to clarify the the drm stuff there's been a little bit of confusion because you guys again to great applause I really can pay attention to Microsoft's announcement to great applause you know announced on disk you're going to allow people that you know they're going to play used games and they don't have to connect to the internet all the time that you know be very clear Paul back laid it out pretty clearly then you guys also said some stuff though about developers being able to set their own drm I just want to you know clarify what what that means and also what the drm policies are for digital it's not that developers are setting their own DMI drm we we set a very clear policy about about physical used games and there's a reason that you know kind of that one-two punch just basically saying look the your games you bought them you can play them on your machine at home and you want to play the metra friend's house you take it to your friends house and you play the policy is very simple and we're setting the precedent on definitely how we want all first party games act and for me personally I believe that you know why would it make sense right for anyone to come up with a used game drm policy that's that's that that that isn't fair to consumers well so so there are other ways that your guys's policies right now contrast with with the current gen or are you guys the same it's the same thing because we are seeing right in the current jam the current gen like this game comes with an unlock codes you get a special sword for the person first person who buys it or you know the online activation to that so that less than he was it going to limit at all attempt to look it two different questions so first question could a publisher come out with a special piece of content that is an unlock code that makes it more valuable to the first purchaser sure that could happen it still doesn't prevent secondhand sale of that game but I wondering if there's any new ways you gonna try to discourage that or no it's not it's not a goal to discourage it I think we came right out and said that the online pass you know will go away because that's because it requires a PS Plus subscription to play multiplayer online does it make sense for an online pass to ask you to pay again it just doesn't make any sense right so that's that's why we came out very clearly and said that you know no more online pass okay yeah what why does some playstation plus cost to play multiplayer people have been used to having maybe a subpar multiplayer experience on PlayStation and also having that for free so where's the where's the balance there now that you have to pay from if you're going to put it that way I think that that does cost a lot of money to run a set of online services that's what I'm at yeah and I think of the reason that you're moving that way yeah absolutely can be better at multiplayer absolutely okay you know if you're gonna put it that way tell me that you'll be better at multi and I think that that is that is absolutely our goal you know we want to provide a service that's very robust and that offers you all kinds of great value and it there's other services there too and we're not going to do silly things like not going to put the movie services behind the pay gate because that doesn't make sense you already pay for it right so we're treating this as fairly as we can you know for all the customers out there and making sure that they get a ton of value and that they do get a better service at the end of the day is there any reason to believe that so that the PlayStation 4 will be any different than the PlayStation 3 as far as your guys's own entertainment services sony has this vast library of movies and music that no other publisher has and so let's take advantage of it let's find new ways to take advantage of it let's let's make that PlayStation customer happier than any other customer out there and what Michael did say on sage is that it's to his it's to his benefit that playstation 4 succeeds is that going to be connected to PlayStation Plus in ways that the people will be able to we're not announcing how all those things tie together I mean there's there's all sorts of different permutation what are there what does game or friendly content mean like what do gamers want I think what michael was referring to is that there's obviously when you think of kind of the stereotypical hardcore gamer you kind of think of a certain genre of movies I think that's what he was referring to this would be all the fast and furious man if there's no zombies it doesn't make it on no it's it either you know but but in that girl's name okay yeah and I think who knows what that means I think that that gamers like a pretty wide variety of movies so Gaikai I think I know I assume Gaikai was coming the game streaming was coming too at launch so what why is that being delayed or is that being delayed it's just it's a service that's going to continue to grow over time and I think that it's um you know still a relatively new technology and understanding how that's going to work with PlayStation content on not just PlayStation machines but on all sorts of other devices there's still a lot that that has to be worked out and that was Andy's point he was he was verifying that a beyond on all devices here you know your smartphone your tablet all that stuff but that it would continue to grow over time I mean a part of the family now and it's launching early 2014 yeah that's what he knows and you guys talked about select classic ps3 games being playable over Gaikai we haven't announced exactly which I think Andy's just making a point that we're gonna start there and again that that library is going to grow there's so much in the PlayStation library from 17 years I just didn't backwards compatibility has been something that has been over promise under delivered by everybody in the Indiana me all the time yeah is there any reason to believe that it's going to be better this time what people will still be playing history games because i don't know if i have room for a ps3 and a ps4 and xbox 360 and xbox one in my welcome by the last two then so again that is part of the goal is that gaikai will not only reach out to a whole different set of folks out there but that it might satisfy some of that need to play some of your older games this is total tangent but I'm a huge twitch TV fan yeah when you get the notes you stream yeah I was really excited about that because I think that's I love enjoying games vicariously and watching me all the way it's cool but then microsoft announced which and i'm at which guy yeah that's where I go every night which you know games me to sleep where you guys surprised that microsoft announced twitch streaming and do you think that's just obvious that's obvious but I don't know that we were surprised either i mean this is this is an industry this is the week when everyone announces all their deals and associations with all these other technologies and companies so things happen I mean was Microsoft surprised when we announced redbox and flixster I don't know your service is a little different yeah and that it will you can someone can jump in and play your game right eventually through gotcha is that the yeah that is that is that is kind of the long-term goal there it's pretty interesting it's a pretty interesting idea I think someone is going to come and help you out with something you have in trouble with that's pretty neat and so that will all happen through the console interface you're watching somebody over their shoulder then you press a button yeah that is over yeah again and then that is the long-term goal this long-term goal and then will that happen when die-cut launches or maybe even longer than that not a hundred percent sure okay you said you get these sort of vertical slices of these games and in the early stages and obviously these are all still pretty early are they there any that you get to have a good time ps4 crazy next-gen games that you can go into your office right now sit down and have a good time with I mean you can do that with everything that you they saw at the show like those were live gameplay demos that you saw when you walked in last night so yeah all those games I can I can play those same sections it's just I can't wait until all that stuff is revealed because I'm really excited about how that looks in that game so absolutely all right all right Dina thank you so much thanks take it easy so there's this buzzword being thrown around next-gen we've seen next-gen games we've seen next-gen consoles it's really just all next-gen everything what does that actually mean we've seen dozens of games of every shape and size but what makes them next-gen we sent sean hollister our resident next-gen expert to find out what's the next generation game really we came to e3 2013 to find out here we've got the playstation 4 the xbox one scenes galore but what are these games all about of course better graphics play a role Xbox and PlayStation developers are competing to build the most photo realistic virtual cars we've ever seen and most every ps4 and Xbox one game looks way better than games built for the previous generation of consoles characters and environments are more richly detailed and where many ps3 and xbox 360 games didn't even technically run at 720p full 1080p HD is practically a given what could be more glorious than exploring a giant open-world at 1080p Assassin's Creed Black Flag dead rising 3 even metal gear solid 5 are promising huge environments to explore whether you're sailing a pirate ship around the Caribbean hiding from hordes of zombies in a giant city or navigating Afghanistan by horse those vast worlds are also more interactive and immersive than ever before some promised to let you carve a path through the world dynamically changing the environment while others simply put armies of characters on screen at the same time those characters might not just be cannon fodder either they could each have their own backstory and make you think twice about shooting them in the back of the head even as open world titles do away with the idea of breaking games in two levels the graphical power and speed of next-gen machines are helping to bridge the gap between cutscenes and gameplay while there's still work to be done it may no longer feel like you're watching one game and playing a different less graphically impressive one while we're talking about seamless experiences how about throwing multiplayer into the mix several studios are working on titles that allow friends more bitter rivals to seamlessly join your ostensible single-player game while others are trying to build multiplayer games that feel like they have a real merit when you turn off your next generation console or PC the game won't necessarily end at least not if you've got a companion app for your smartphone or tablet you'll create worlds command armies that remotely help your friends or use the device as a virtual reality GPS so you all get lost in a virtual world we're just beginning to see what next-gen games are capable of here at e3 2013 looking at the work of developers who began building these games with only a hunch about the possibilities on tap and even then we're only seeing the initial versions of these games they created there's still plenty left to explore so we've seen next-gen games we've seen the next gen consoles and now all that's left is to actually play the things so that's it for a show this week thanks to scott roadie from sony for being here and of course to sean hollister and paul miller will be back next week but unfortunately for now I have to go I've been saying I'm super 8 for way too long we'll see you next week