@sarahsdad: Has Sony yet announced PS4 digital game trading/selling etc? I may have missed it if they did. At the moment it looks like Microsoft's crazy used/borrow/trade rules may actually be designed specifically to cover the move to digital games as they mentioned, albeit vaguely, digital game trading. That's one of the things I am most interested in and hoping to hear more about from both companies as I will likely download all if not most of my games from here on, leaving any disc-based lending rules irrelevant, (to me).

On a similar note, I wish games downloaded without a disc through XBLM wouldn't require the 24-hour check. How can I lend someone a game disc I don't have?

Sony really nailed it. It felt much more grandiose than Microsoft's conference. The Dark Sorcerer tech demo looked great. FFXV looked a bit linear, but it wasn't an FPS so that was cool. I liked the focus on indie games as well.

Mandatory PS+ is lame, but there is a lot of value in that service. I'll probably hang on to my PS3 for a while, but if I had the cashflow I'd try to pick up a PS4 around launch.

I've preordered a ps4 already. that price was right in my wheelhouse, and i've been a ps+ subscriber since they offered it - terrific deal and now is pretty necessary.

I will say that the $499 MS price looks too high right now, but there have been rumors for weeks that they will offer a subsidy for 2 year XBL contracts. I wouldnt be surprised if they launch with a $399 w/ 2 year XBL agreement price point.

Still - Sony learned its lesson after being knocked off its high horse this generation - looks like its time for MS to have some humble pie this time around.

@patman99: This is where I am at as well. I don't get people spewing vitriol for microsoft; MS is trying something new, Sony is sticking to the old way. Only time will tell how those differing philosophies will play out. Aside from the price announcement, I don't really get why people are so high on Sony. I thought that microsoft's showing was much stronger...i dunno.

I'm 100% certain at this point that it has been proven false. There was no point for MS to hold anything back in their announcement especially if it's positive. If MS didn't announce subsidized price yesterday (they didn't even give a hint), it means there is no such thing.

I disagree with Alex here. The Sony conference was tepid, at best. Right up until they kicked Microsoft in the nuts at the end. Almost everything Sony showed was a known quantity. Either they had already shown the game or it was already a PS staple franchise. The only thing in the whole show that was exciting was the price (which was pretty exciting). The DRM thing was just Sony taking advantage of everyone flipping out over Microsoft's bad press. Keep in mind, Sony is still pushing non-sharable, download games (remember the whole "play as you download" thing?). The Xbox show wasn't great but it had a lot more to show. They had lot more exclusives. Of which, could be due to the DRM thing. Bigger game companies are going to love that and be more likely to give them favor. Game switching was cool too.

Not trying to steer this in any one directions. I don't plan on buying either one. Sticking to PC here. I just don't want people getting blinded by one or two things that may or may not matter as much as the hype makes them seem to matter. It's easy to lose the forest for the trees so soon after these shows. In the end, consumers should come out on top. This crazy, cut-throat competition is almost always great for us.

@shiftplusone: And then they showed how many new IPs? Come on, Sony fanboys...the PS4 looks like a dumbed-down box with zero good exclusive content compared to exclusive IP after exclusive IP at the MS show. How any sane individual who enjoys games could watch those two events and come out believing Sony is delivering a better product is beyond me. Is lending/renting games THAT big of a deal to you? Because that and $100 and a distinct lack of content are what you get from the PS4. MS trotted out far better original IP in both the AAA and Indie markets (yes, I'll take an amazing looking NEW game from the creators of Superbrothers over a retread of Oddworld anyway).

I preordered my Xbox One last night after watching both conferences in their entirety. For weeks gamers have been saying it's "all about the games", which MS delivered (both in new IP and in new content/mechanics) and Sony did not. Only one of these two boxes feels "next gen" to me in terms of "doing new and interesting things with games; pushing the envelope" and that is clearly MS. It all feels very PS2/OG Xbox era to me, when it was announced that the OGXbox was to use broadband only and people were up in arms, look what that step did to push gaming forward...and again we have MS pushing tech and Sony playing it conservatively, happy to give you a box that literally does nothing new or different from their existing box for $100 less than a company who is offering you the future. *SMH*

Hell fucking yeah ... ok Micro$osft defenders what do you have to say now?

Titanfall, Quantum Break, Killer Instinct 3, D4, and... uh... RYSE???

I am so torn about this stuff. I was ready to preorder the X1 but knew I had to wait to see if we got a price from Sony. I fully expected $499 from them too. Then this happens.

My mind tells me, the PS4 is compelling for the price, but I am one of those who believes in the new kinect from what I have seen and the gestures and switching between games and apps on the X1 did grab me. It really did. And i knew I would get games.

Sony's exclusives, honestly, beyond a few gems, always seem like shit to me. Catering to the Square Enix crowd and their lame franchises. Killzone, I detest. KZ2 was the game that I got a PS3 for and was burned. Infamous I never had fun with. Really I loved Uncharted 2 and can't wait to dig into the Last of Us, but those are on the PS3. The rest is 3rd party. I want Forza. TitanFall looks so cool but might just get that for PC.

As for the DRM stuff, I still think the debate is out. We know that PS4 games will all be available day one digitally. So what is to keep a publisher from doing the MS thing and going with digital only or selling discs with codes? And I think Sony is delaying what should happen, where games migrate more to a steam like environment and we get sales and deals that publishers can set and games aren't hard to find after the fact.

I guess I am still going with the Xbox 1 because I want my Halo, I want my Forza, and what I told my brother, I want to use that 360 controller. I think the PS layout has been crap for years and it goes back to thinking the Dreamcast controller was the right way to do it, albeit missing a stick. At this point in my life, I want more out of my console. I am into sports and TV and movies. I understand Sony won E3, but that was because it appealed to the small section of gamers that read this website, that keep up with the news on games. DRM and used games, stuff I thought was silly to even complain about. Price? Well the Kinect comes with the Xbox 1 and I know that a lot of families will like that.

Did I wake up in some alt universe where online play is bad and slow loading discs are good? Did we even see the same show? Sony is competing with WiiU. MS is competing with Steam and Apple. NO JOKE.

Sony is making it easy to want their new console.

Microsoft is not.

Well done Sony, well done.

How many first-year exclusives are usually worth playing? I'm no expert, but I guess on the PS3 it was Uncharted, and on the Xbox360 side a Halo or Gears? My point is, it's very odd to me to chose one or the other based primarily on what was shown at this event.

The idea that you can just "count them and there's your answer!" just seems borderline insane.

We still have more events (gamescon) before these release, do we know how many if any exclusives either party held back for that? No? Then if you're only going by exclusives, shouldn't you wait till closer to release so you get the count right?

None of the actually exclusive titles (which aren't that many once we remove the 'console' and 'timed' modifiers) shown by any of the parties are such that I feel "I must play that!".

Add to that that some are so far out we're just better off forgetting about them (that Black Tusk title for instance).

If nothing else, Sony hasn't played the Naughty Dog card yet, and to me that's quite an important card.

If "slow loading"[citation needed] discs are a problem, I'm sure Sony will be happy to sell you the game from their Online store, just as they have been with the PS3. What was your problem again?

Yeah I'm going with PS4.

Sony seems to have handled the pre-console-launch hype perfectly. This is actually one of those rare occasions where seeing a massive corporation nailing their PR is as enjoyable to witness as those glorious, out-of-touch, train wreck affairs. The build-up to their marvellous finish during the press conference really is something to behold.

I'm excited to see how this'll play out once the consoles are actually out in the wild. Worst case scenario: the PR impressions are spot-on and MS somehow wins with their media center strategy while Sony's game focus bites them in the ass. But that's (hopefully) just my paranoid, cynical self speculating. For now I'm happy with the thrill and excitement I wasn't sure I'd get out of the impending console launch.

Hey MS shills.. you're the one part of MS doing a good job :)

Yeah, it should be noted that the PS4 most certainly is capable of all the DRM stuff the Xone does, the main difference is that they seem to leave it to the publisher if they want to use it - and it's safe to assume the big ones like EA, Ubisoft and Activision will, and that Sony won't stop them, while Xone even uses online authentication down on the OS level regardless of the publisher's opinion.

Not to mention pretty much every PS3 game in the past 3 years have had mandatory installs.

Never was a big sony guy. Before all this mess I was backing the new xbox thingy. Now I have a ps4 pre-ordered and don't plan on buying an xbone any time soon. That's kinda how I thought sony did last night.

See - i disagree with this. I think they dont show all their cards until they know what Sony is doing. This is how Sony was able to capitalize on the whole Used Game fiasco and price point so well.

@eloj: At which point, I should have just bought the better Xbox One since I won't be trading or giving away that digital copy and it will have to authenticate online. Now are you getting it? Sony lags behind MS in terms of service offerings here..no Skype, no SmartGlass (unless I buy a Vita), no Twitch, no fantasy sports, no TV, no amazing cloud integration (Gaikai streaming is nice, but we aren't talking about actual cloud-processing integration like Forza 5).

Well said my friend.

This was pretty much the culmination of the last few years. Crazy good PS+, better indie relationships, and overall respect for customers after the PS3 launch debacle. I didn't expect them to go this hard, but it was a sight to see.

It didn't help that outside of Titanfall the Microsoft offering this morning wasn't that great, and their attempts to compete on indie games and free games for members paled in comparison. The price and DRM were the highlights, but there were a lot of things that keep pushing me Sony's direction.

I'll eventually have both consules... But If I had to choose it would be PS4. All of this drm bullshit has rubbed me the wrong way.

so how long til there's a meme this sony/microsoft thing set to the backdrop of the red wedding.

This conference single handedly made me care about E3 this year.

Care about your consumers. It's such a simple idea. It's good to know that one company understands. Or is at least so good at faking it that I'll let myself believe.

Yeah yeah Nintendo. I hear you. You're cute. But the adults are talking, so just keep playing with your Legos.

For me, Xbox ONE is a complete non-starter, irrespective of whatever games it may or may not have. The reason starts and ends with consumers rights, and Microsoft's clear disdain for them. It is not a PC, and therefore can never be Steam. It is, I therefore conclude, a bag of shit.

All yesterday did was get me excited for both.. but neither made me feel like i had to go out and immediately pre-order a new console.. still a lot of time before holiday.. would probably lead more towards the xbox at this point since the games stood out more to me.. whereas the Used Games/Internet Connectivity doesn't affect me personally.. it was just cool to get the feeling that a new generation is upon us..

No, I'm not getting it, I can't relate to anyone who thinks "fantasy sports" is a selling point for a console. All that is just random crap that would interfere with playing games.

But I can tell from the way you wax lyrical about "cloud processing" that you're deep into the Kool-Aid. You're a marketers dream.

Legos can be pretty awesome, if done right.

I've been a Playstation owner since the original PS1 (I also owned the original Xbox) but I've been also impressed with how the 360 has turned into such a great machine with good services. I was really on the fence once 2013 rolled around and was looking forward to seeing how the new consoles turned out. I'm not interested in always-online, but I can handle it. The whole idea of Kinect doesn't interest me - and I've been a very happy owner of a PS+ account for a while now. I can afford $399 AND $499 so the price isn't a huge deal to me personally - but after this E3 Sony has definitely won me over again. I DO trade in my used games, I DO hate the idea of DRM and I DO like the Dualshock over the Xbox controller. PS4 for me.

I'd been debating simply going the full PC route this gen, but this conference made me strongly reconsider that. This console is looking damn sharp.

^^This.

I dont see why so many people want to give up 1/3 of their screen for non-Yahoo Fantasy Stats (who knows how long it will take to configure point settings or if you have to set everything up with a Microsoft-specific service. I have a tablet that gives me real-time updates for my league. "Cloud Computing" lol. anything can be called cloud computing. Google SETI screensaver - they beat MS by a decade.

Closer to launch they announce a $200 subsidy (or potentially even less) and that will get them the install base they want. Sony can't possibly undercut that during the holidays, so mainstream gamers will pick up the cheaper of the two like its a new phone and be content.

Jack Treton just said DRM is up to the publisher, I dunno if that means just for online games or for offline to.

@matoyak: It will be impossible for every game to implement a fee, only if it has multiplayer. I imagine it will be like its now at worst an online pass fee.

I do buy on Steam, actually I'm primarily a PC gamer nowadays and rarely (if ever buy used) and I still preordered. Console gaming and PC gaming aren't the same in terms of fees and barrier to entry. I gladly deal with Steam's DRM because of the game pricing, lack of subscription fee, and free to play games, but I would never accept that from consoles. My PC always must be online because I use it for work. My console that I stream the Daily Show on does not.

As I see it my options are to upgrade my GPU at the end of this year (a $200-300 investment to move beyond what I own) or get a PS4. My PS3 which I primarily use for blu-ray and media streaming is a launch console and on its last legs. So by upgrading rightaway I can stretch out its use and shift my PC back to work use. Yes, its a console investment, games will cost more, be on sale less, but PC gaming is not an unassailable perk. I constantly deal with weird graphics issues, driver updates, game crashes, keyboard rebinds. I'd gladly pay a bit more for convenience.

Used games don't affect me at all, but it used to. I got into gaming because I was a poor kid who bought used and traded my carts to get better ones. That's a legacy I don't want to put behind a paywall or connectivity requirement. Out of all this next gen hoopla Sony has is the only company so far that has come out and openly say "we're trying to make it easy to play games," Nintendo, Steam, MS, none of them have stepped up to the plate. It remains to be seen if they can follow through, but if appealing to the gaming audience can't win at least a little enthusiasm then why bother playing games at all?

Not surprising, they also indicated that there was no region locking on PS4, turns out that it's just like the 360 and PS3, region locking is per title and at the discretion of the publisher (Ubisoft and Microsoft games generally weren't locked on 360, EA and Activision generally were).

I've also heard a lot of media types indicating that the Xbox stuff is worse than steam. Steam's DRM scheme is pretty damn intrusive if you use more than one device. If you go on vacation or something it is really easy to find yourself locked out of your games on your laptop, and there has always been the option for publishers to layer additional DRM stuff on top of Steam's (Ubisoft in particular, but there are games with GFW Live in them too from Take2 and Warner).

Right now we have the Headline lies from both groups, in the next week we'll get the retractions and clarifications.

I wish I were with the rest of the internet thinking it was some huge blowout:

• Being $100 cheaper (less if you get the camera)
• timed exclusives on some indie games
• a few platform exclusive games (none of which grabbed me as much as titanfall)
• no phoning home every day (and thus the ability to play games off the disc)

All great points, but I still think I'm not 100% sold on that being my platform of choice.

Sounds like the "used game fee" is not borne by the users anyway, it's between the retailers and publishers. The entire system of account verification is established to ensure that once someone else starts using a license key, you can't use it anymore.

It doesn't need to be online, unless you want to actually stream the Daily Show to it.

Yeah, it's pretty shady that you can easily buy games on Steam that your system is just too new to play or totally incompatible with. Some games just won't play on ATI hardware (primarily Xbox era games with a PC version, some functions were written for Nvidia cards specifically), others won't play on anything new because they're GLIDE based. Constantly testing every configuration and so forth would certainly be an impossible mission but with no recourse for "returning" the game, it kind of sucks.

I'm another one that hasn't bought a used game in several years. Buying used shorts the developers, it is anti-developer. The used game market is also predatory towards users who buy and sell in that market where the prices are basically set by a monopolist (Gamestop). No used games means that new games have to drop in price faster, because that price drop is how you get penetration into the wider customer base. The availability of used games props up the price of new games, and the stickiness of new game prices is allowing users to be boned by Gamestop selling you the same title for 5 bucks less than a NIB one (and 10 dollars more than Amazon).

I don't know, I'm not feeling good about the entire state of gaming right now, maybe in part because there's not enough information. I feel like everyone is telling half the truth (or less).

@colonelxanders: holy shit what????

It's funny, what people call "adaptable" I call "desperation" everything in sony's conference seemed a desperate reach for any fans that were pissed off for reasons they aren't even totally sure about. My console is connected to the Internet EVERYDAY ( because I have the "Internet".....duh) used games are bullshit (really think about it) and I seriously couldn't care less about physical media. Sony might seem smart and savy, but to me it just came off as shallow, desperate and showed a willingness to ignore future business models and hamper progression. Besides, what games did Sony show again......o ya......another final fantasy.....yay ):

It's funny, what people call "adaptable" I call "desperation" everything in sony's conference seemed a desperate reach for any fans that were pissed off for reasons they aren't even totally sure about. My console is connected to the Internet EVERYDAY ( because I have the "Internet".....duh) used games are bullshit (really think about it) and I seriously couldn't care less about physical media. Sony might seem smart and savy, but to me it just came off as shallow, desperate and showed a willingness to ignore future business models and hamper progression. Besides, what games did Sony show again......o ya......another final fantasy.....yay ):

The other thing I'm not clear on is what the console makers mean what they say "self publish."

Does self publish mean there won't be any TCRs, that it's the wild wild west on updates and prices are whatever you want and changeable on a dime? If Microsoft says "no self publishing" does that mean that they are acting as the publisher for games that aren't coming out of a third party (i.e. taking a cut of the price and possibly surfacing the games in advertisements or sales?)

They could totally be talking in opposite directions with the media hearing whatever they want to.

@eloj:

Please explain how "doing more" interferes with your gaming? If anything, as was apparent during the SmartGlass demo, the "doing more" only improves it. (Sony is going to allow me to matchmake on-the-fly while playing a different single-player game and then switch back and forth instantaneously? Nah...)

And again, what Kool-Aid? MS showed me next gen, they showed me persistent, connected worlds and they showed me a new way to look at "AI". Sony? They showed me a bunch of games I can also play on the Xbox One while also enjoying the rest of what MS has bundled together.

@oginor: fucking A

@ei8htbit: The PS3 and Vita stuff was barely a quarter of the show. They announced some stuff quickly, then mentioned the video apps, then the rest was all PS4 stuff.

If you want the quicker load times of video games installed on a hard-drive compared to a disc, you can download video games from Playstation Network similar to Steam, or possibly install a disc to the hard-drive like you could on the Xbox 360. However if you want a physical disc to lend to friends, sell, or keep you can do that too with no restrictions on the Playstation 4. Additionally you can play offline as much as you want. You can have the best of both worlds and choose which one you prefer, on the Xbox One Microsoft is making that decision for you and making physical discs nothing more than a way to avoid slow internet download speeds.

Funny how inverted everything is compared to the 2005 press conferences. This time, Microsoft's showing their hubris, and Sony is attempting to woo consumers and developers like their lives depended on it. Yesterday was pretty exciting.