PlayStation Meeting 2016 live report
Neo! Slim! House in the house. Live from 8pm BST.
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Sony has assembled the world's press in New York for a briefing that's kicking off at 8pm tonight, and
Oh, it's that last one isn't it? Join us from 8pm BST tonight for all the fun!
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
Early? I've been up since 10pm last night watching this Twitch splash screen in hot anticipation. I'M SO EXCITED.
Also people were asking when it's on/where to watch it, so hopefully this will help.
I'm still getting over that satin number he wore a few years back. It was sublime.
Apologies for the low-res picture, but if the resolution were any higher I think I'd just explode.
orangpelupa: EG, could you tell me the time in GMT? thankyou!
BST is GMT+1, so it'll be 7pm GMT.
I_Am_CatButler: Kaz Hirai walks on stage, image of Cell powered Vita 2 appears behind him, he laughs, dops mic and walks off stage, still laughing.
We'd all be laughing pretty hard if that happened.
Bratterz: Please don't spoil Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Dumbledore dies at the end.
Thermobaric: I predict a whole load of disappointment from all the people expecting something Red Dead related.
Same here. It would just be an odd platform for it, and Rockstar would surely love the stage to itself for such a big announcement. I could be wrong though, I often am.
Just got back from a shop run to get some beer/crisps/the finishing touches to my Jumping Flash cosplay outfit I'll be wearing tonight. Only seven hours to go!
(Probably best to figure out something else to do over the next seven hours other than staring at this page. Might do some work or something idk).
Malek86: My prediction: Nintendo will suddenly hijack the venue and show the NX.
I had a dream that this very thing happened last night. Which says nothing beyond the fact I have awful, mundane dreams.
megatronix: 7 hours to go! Is your job to wait and be on feed till then?
As my complete ignorance of that question for the past hour suggests, we're not going to be here for *all* of the next five hours. We'll be kicking off in earnest ourselves from about 7.30pm BST.
Gooooooooood evening interneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
Rich Leadbetter, our man on the ground in New York, has just taken his seat.
Meanwhile here in a shed in Lewisham I'm eating crisps and have just opened a beer because I'm a professional thank you very much.
funkstar: Martin, do you ever wish you could go and see the nipples in person?
I've seen them in person, and they're better off admired from afar. And on a small window on my PC at no higher resolution than 240p.
Brilliantly I was off elsewhere when Miyamoto took to the stage at the Apple keynote to announce Super Mario Run.
So any pretensions I had of being some kind of prophet having dreamt last night that Nintendo was going to hijack tonight to announce a partnership with Sony and unveil the NX have been totally shot through.
In case you missed it, Nintendo just announced a bespoke Mario game for iOS (and Android a little later).
Which in the grand scheme of things may end up being more significant than whatever Sony reveals tonight.
The Sony conference will be 90 minutes long, I believe.
Which is par for the course for Sony. It's also a decent amount of time so I'm hoping we get some software alongside the hardware we're all expecting to see tonight.
There's absolutely zero chance of this starting on time, of course.
vert1go: VR distractions, five minutes of Last Guardian, a mention of Shenmue 3, an announcement of a rebrand that never goes through and slim. Also pie charts. Think that about fills it.
This is likely going to be so spot on I reckon you're working from a leak.
mkreku: I will have forgotten it in an hour. There's exactly one country on earth that cares for BST
I am loving this debate about BST/GMT. BST is bullshit, as someone's already pointed out, but it's what we're on in the UK at the moment so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
It's a schoolnight and it's out of office hours. What's everyone sacrificed to watch the PlayStation Meeting tonight?
It's bread week on Great British Bake Off, I'm told. I'm not savvy/smart enough to be dual-screening that though.
I'm giving up playing iRacing which has just had Le Mans added. I had my special boots and gloves ready and everything.
Resurrected-X460: I've sacrificed my love life and my humanity as I let my troubled friend walk alone to his home at 11 o.m. local time... MWAHAHAHAHA
I sacrificed all that stuff to video games a *long* time ago.
So, last time we were all assembled here for the EA Gamescom... thing, it got a little bit weird.
I'm fully expecting something to actually happen tonight, though, so I don't think it'll be quite so disappointing.
Having said that, I'll be disappointed if anything less than Jim Ryan coming out on stage on a bucking bronco with tassles on his tits kicks things off.
I don't know I'd take an announcement or two though.
What to actually expect? PS4 Neo - and I don't think that'll be the final name - and PS4 Slim. Which is probably not called the PS4 Slim either and is merely replacing the current unit.
And I keep forgetting that Sony's weeks away from a major hardware release.
Which maybe doesn't bode well for its prospects, but I'm still not 100 per cent convinced about VR's mainstream prospects in the immediate future.
podgek293: is a 2016 release too risky a bet?
Common sense dictates it'll be this year. Otherwise they're just undermining the current PS4 as they're about to head into Q4, which would be crazy.
I mean, who'd undermine their current offering by announcing there's a much better version coming out next year?
X201: Place your bets, which old franchise is getting revived in 4K?
Cheers if it's Jumping Flash! Tears if it's Twisted Metal...
It's time to begin!
But Sony hasn't begun, of course. Where'd be the fun in that?
MrTomFTW: I've got the conference snapped on my Xbox One while I play Deus Ex, marking the first time I've snapped anything in the last two years. Good feature. Top marks.
Haha, top work!
I'm genuinely excited. But I'm always excited before these things, and then the crushing disappointment and boredom kicks in.
Tonight might be different though!
Chocolate bread is the signature challenge tonight, by the way.
Not in New York, obviously, as much as I'd love to sample Jim Ryan's sweet loaf.
They should at least just stream the first few minutes of Great British Bake Off in the auditorium to keep everyone entertained while Sony tries to remember where it put its notes.
Five minutes late, but we're up and running.
Andrew House in the houuuuuussssee.
He's sporting a sombre grey number, and this is a sombre opening.
Paul Hollywood is apparently in a really bad mood, and I don't know if that's related. Maybe he's not totally sold on these mid-generation refreshes either.
And there you go - straight in with the slimmer PS4 which replaces the current model.
You might have seen that somewhere else before.
This new PS4 will be in stores by September 15th, and it's £259 over here.
That's the price in BST. I'm afraid I didn't catch it in CET or GMT.
Andrew says the PS4 was always designed with evolution in mind.
And he's straight onto talking about new displays.
This does seem very, very low key, like he's about to tell us we've all got a terminal disease.
PlayStation 4 Pro is the name of what we previously referred to as Neo.
Mark Cerny, gaming's own Paul Hollywood, is on the stage to tell us more about PlayStation 4 Pro.
Mark's checked, untucked shirt suggests to me he isn't taking this seriously enough.
His diction, which makes him sound like a Bond villain explaining his evil plan while brandishing a hacksaw and quietly threatening to cut off my legs, is making me take him very seriously though.
I've gone from sheer terror to a sedated bliss. Cerny's voice is actually quite soothing.
The first game we're seeing on PS4 Pro is Insomniac's Spiderman.
Existing games will also benefit from Pro's power - we're being shown Deus Ex Mankind Divided.
It is very, very hard to appreciate any difference on a Twitch window back home.
I think even in the auditorium it'd be hard to appreciate the difference.
Thief000: This is boring AF so far...nobody in the audience seems to be impressed either.
I think the sedated tone of these presentations isn't helping.
I feel like I'm watching the nerdiest version of The Shopping Channel right now as Mark Cerny tells us about HDR TVs.
I remember getting excited for HDR in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast.
I think I'm over it now though.
Uncharted 4 is making an appearance to highlight HDR and higher resolutions, confirming it's also going to benefit.
PS4 Pro will also benefit those without 4K TVs.
Forward compatibility is the name being given to games that are patched to take advantage of Pro.
Rich, who is much better versed in these things, is about to post some impressions from the auditorium which will hopefully help enlighten us more than watching via a stream.
This is definitely the most *soothing* video game press conference I've ever seen.
They've even managed to make Horizon look like a sedate walking simulator. Maybe *that's* what the Pro does.
That, then, was a game running on PS4 Pro. Impressed?
Confirming much of what we already know, there's one game and one community across PS4 and PS4 Pro.
This guy's voice is even more soothing than Cerny's. Wait, they haven't turned his mic on.
Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare will support PS4 Pro out the box.
Which confirms that Pro is a 2016 release - or have I missed that announcement already?
Before we get that, though, here's Infinite Warfare running on PS4 Pro.
So far this event proves that Sony's got a tough job on its hands selling this thing as it's hard to appreciate the difference between vanilla PS4 and PS4 Pro.
But hey it's okay because I think we're about to see some Mass Effect Andromeda footage.
It's our first proper look at Mass Effect Andromeda. And it looks a lot like Dragon Age Inquisition, unsurprisingly. But in space!
gamefan: so when is PS4 Pro Out and price
November at the latest, it looks like. No price just yet!
4K streaming services are also a part of PS4 Pro, with Netflix onboard to help facilitate that.
Every PS4 will be HDR capable after a firmware update next week.
Now *that's* some lovely news. Even if I still need Rich to explain to me the benefit of HDR.
A showreel of PS4 Pro games - Dishonored, Deus Ex, Shadow of Mordor, Final Fantasy 15, Watch Dogs 2, Rise of The Tomb Raider.
All of the games, basically. It's going to work with all of the games.
Complete silence meets the unveiling of the Pro.
The important stuff - £349, out November 10th.
And that's the show.
A very understated showing from Sony.
They know the struggle that's on their hand messaging this thing, it seems.
There's none of the tubthumping that accompanied Scorpio's announcement with its claim of being the most powerful games console to date.
Sony almost seems on the back foot. But it has got the benefit of an imminent launch.
Ultimately, though, that was really, really dry. Sorry.
We'll have plenty more from you as Rich reports from the frontline and brings you his impressions of the Pro.
Shawn Layden makes an appearance in the post-conference stream.
But it's too late. They shouldn't have kept him on the bench.
It's an odd looking thing, right?
I'm not sold on the PS4 Pro, and looking elsewhere I think that's the case for many.
Maybe that'll change when I get to see the thing in the flesh.
You'd be excused for popping off to catch the end of GBBO. Is that in 4K HDR yet?
vert1go: Sony could have wheeled out Pele. And NOBODY WOULD HAVE MINDED.
I would have lost my shit. God, I might have even accepted Spencer FC if he brought some energy to the show.
We're expecting actual specs in a blog post shortly.
aidey6: What the heck is the face-off going to list going forward PS4 vs PS4Pro vs XboxOne vs XBoxOne S, with and with HDR Shiiiiiiiiiiiit How much a half decent TV with HDR capability ??!!!
I feel for DF...
We got a date and a price, but there's still plenty to clear up over PS4 Pro - how big the patches will be, will it support 4K Blu-ray - and hopefully that'll all become clear in the coming day.
What I'm trying to say is I'm going to pass over to Rich at the show and those more competent than me to explain to you in detail what all this means.
So it's good night from me. And apologies if you were expecting a little more!
I've got some updates from Rich Leadbetter on the show floor in New York, who's seen everything on actual 4K displays and has a better idea of how it really looks.
"In terms of first impressions, HDR is seriously impressive. The resolution bump looked great in many cases, not so great in others. Spider-Man and Horizon looked epic, Call of Duty less so."
"The big issue I saw in the demos was performance. COD wasn't 4K and it wasn't 60fps. The Uncharted 4 demo I’m seeing here looks beautiful but it’s dropping beneath 30fps, though they reckon it'll be smoother than the original on release."
"The big issue facing both Sony and Microsoft is that very few people have the means - i.e. the TVs - to actually see the difference," says Rich.