While gamers wait for the official launch of PlayStation 5 and the wireless DualSense controller this winter or holiday season, Sony has officially set a date for the virtual PlayStation 5 reveal event. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and isolations, the gaming industry experienced a few delays in highly-anticipated gaming releases (Cyberpunk 2077, Ghosts of Tsushima and The Last Of Us Part II, to name a few) as well as the launch of the PS5 console itself.
Jim Ryan, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, shared in a self-penned PlayStation blog post on May 29, “The games coming to PS5 represent the best in the industry from innovative studios that span the globe. Studios, both larger and smaller, those newer and those more established, all have been hard at work developing games that will showcase the potential of the hardware.”
PlayStation’s exclusivity
There was quite a stir on the Internet when Ryan confirmed in a May 29 interview for GamesIndustry.biz that PS5 will have some exclusive games. He said, “We (Sony) have always said that we believe in generations. We believe that when you go to all the trouble of creating a next-gen console, that it should include features and benefits that the previous generation does not include. And that, in our view, people should make games that can make the most of those features. We do believe in generations, and whether it’s the DualSense controller, whether it’s the 3D audio, whether it’s the multiple ways that the SSD (solid state drive) can be used... we are thinking that it is time to give the PlayStation community something new, something different, that can really only be enjoyed on PS5.”
However, Ryan confirms that PS5 will have backwards compatibility, in that players will be able to play existing games from their current library on a next-gen device. On a marketing level, as expected, PlayStation and Sony are gearing up to keep gamers on their platforms.
Upcoming games for PlayStation 5 include Godfall by Gearbox; Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Rainbow Six Quarantine, Gods and Monsters and Watch Dogs Legion by Ubisoft; Outriders by Square Enix; Gran Turismo 7 by Sony, Lord Of The Rings: Gollum by Daedalic Entertainment; Dying Light 2 by Techland. Rumoured PlayStation 5 games include Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 4 and Uncharted 5.
The event may also shed more light on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5, set to arrive in 2021. The demo of gameplay released on May 13 by Epic Games and Unreal Engine went viral for the experience’s fluidity and clarity... and also for the fact that the demo gameplay was hosted on a PS5.
In the aforementioned blog post, Ryan adds that, “This [June 4] digital showcase will run for a bit more than an hour and, for the first time, we will all be together virtually experiencing the excitement together. A lack of physical events has given us an amazing opportunity to think differently and bring you on this journey with us, and hopefully, closer than ever before. This is part of our series of PS5 updates and, rest assured, after next week’s showcase, we will still have much to share with you.”
The Future Of Gaming event is set to go live on Twitch and YouTube on June 4 at 1 pm PDT / 9 pm BST / 10pm CEST which is June 5 at 1.30 am IST.
UPDATE; Tuesday June 2, 2020: This event has been postponed by Sony and PlayStation.
In a statement issued by PlayStation at midnight of June 2, the gaming company says, “We have decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 event scheduled for June 4 [or June 5, India time]. While we understand gamers worldwide are excited to see PS5 games, we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration and for now, we want to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard.” On June 1, PlayStation also issued a declaration of support to the black community.
The postponement comes after the death of 46-year-old African-American George Floyd. Floyd died at police hands and after a video of the attack emerged, this has led to six consecutive days of protest across the United States.
