Grave Gamer News & Views — tokyo game show

PS4 @ TGS: PS3 Games Streaming by 2014; External Capture Devices Welcome

The PlayStation 4 is making the rounds at this year’s Tokyo Game Show event and just as you’d expect/hope, Sony’s been releasing little caveats of information regarding the soon-to-be launched console.

Interviewed during a roundtable discussion with press, Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony Worldwide Studios, spoke on the planned Gaikai cloud streaming which, when announced that it’d be a part of the PS4’s suite of services back in February, was said to be a way to dip into previous system’s back catalogs.

Yoshida confirmed the Gaikai cloud streaming will begin for the North American region sometime in 2014 and that a decent selection of PS3 titles will be available to browse through from the get-go. These very same PS3 games will also be compatible for the PS Vita. Gaikai’s good graces don’t extend to European territories, sadly, due to uneven broadband speeds across the continent. The service is delayed in Europe until sufficient deals are secured between Sony and local ISPs.

Though the PS4’s on-board ability to record and upload short spurts of gameplay opens up a brave new world to casual gamers looking to share with friends, those with more than a few “Let’s Play’s” notched into their belts have wondered if the next-gen console would support external capture devices for extended sessions.

Well, friends, today you have your “Yup.” Sony’s Third Party Relations man, Brad Douglas, confirmed PS4 video capture support via HDMI. Now there’s no halting your ridiculous goddamn gaming feats in glorious HD. 

Capcom Goes Deep Down on TGS

It’s doubtful I could be more proud of a headline. Thank you, Capcom, for enriching my day.

The questionably named role-playing action game, Deep Down, first unveiled all the way back in February has resurfaced at Sony’s pre-Tokyo Game Show presentation (doing pre-shows is the new black in industry eyes, dontchaknow?).

We were served new gameplay footage, hosted by the one and only Ono – I hope you understand Japanese because the translation overlayed in the video is the kind of gibberish you’d expect from smashing keyboards together, except spoken aloud – along with our first concrete details on the game.

Deep Down, developed on Capcom’s new Panta Rhei engine, is first and foremost a PS4 exclusive. Unlike Dragon’s Dogma – which is unrelated despite also being a Capcom developed role-playing game with the initials D.D. (thems the makings for a conspiracy) – Deep Down is an online RPG. A brief segment at the end of the stage demo shows two knights on separate screens duking it out with a dragon.

The most curious fact about the game comes in its setting which depicts New York circa 2094. Before you Reign of Fire fans both combust with excitement and start existing (not in that order), the game’s trailer alludes to a character being able to relive others’ memories, meaning the medieval action could be period-specific instead of evidence of a post-apocalyptic drag-geddon.

With generation-hopping storytelling, online multiplayer, particle effects beautiful enough to warrant a next-gen, and screen-filling, fire-belching dragons, Deep Down, only two public showings in, is already making a name for itself. Even if that name is depraved.