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Sony Interactive Entertainment Announces This Year’s Last State Of Play For December 10

Sony Interactive Entertainment adopted the Direct-esque livestreamed presentation this year with the introduction of the State of Play. The most recent is most notably known for the initial launch date for Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II before abruptly pushing the project’s release date into 2020. Currently the company has hosted up to three showings and another one is on the way for this coming Tuesday, December 10th. It was announced this week that Sony Interactive Entertainment will be hosting the final State of Play with more than 20 minutes of new information regarding the company’s platform. As for what this presentation will be comprised of looks to be some of the company’s lesser spoken of games like the highly-anticipated Ghosts of Tsushima from Infamous developer Sucker Punch Productions. The project was announced back in 2017, the title did receive a demo showcase in the following year’s E3, but no discussion of the game’s arrival has surfaced as of yet. Especially seeing how little time before the next generation with the PlayStation 5, now would seem more appropriate for the title. Another fair prediction would be the unannounced Resident Evil 3 Remake that has been leaked this week. However, while fans anticipated to see the announcement at next Thursday’s annual Game Awards ceremony, host Geoff Keighley denounced this rumor before the week of the event. Notably, this year’s Resident Evil 2 Remake did receive marketing from Sony Interactive Entertainment, so the same is expected for the reworked third installment. Other worthy mentions that fans could expect to possibly be shown off is Predator: Hunting Grounds, Dreams, and an influx of smaller independently developed titles along with some VR as well. While nothing is set in stone as of reporting this reveal, these predictions are what many would say to be very likely at State of Play. What do you hope to see at next week’s live streamed presentation? State of Play will be going live on December 10, 2019 at 6 AM PST / 9 AM EST.

Amazon Plans To Unveil Game Stream Platform Next Year, Features Twitch Integration

This generation came at a surprise with the heavy intertwining of software services and monthly subscriptions seeing that the sales metric that Netflix uses for entertainment like film & television would apply to video games as well. For example, Xbox Game Pass has shown to be a commercial success for the company despite the lacking hardware sales this current console generation as the service applies beyond Xbox and onto PC too. With an arsenal of games at your disposal for a minimum fee, players have show to prefer this approach rather than the traditional individual purchase of each title release. With first-party titles slated to arrive on Game Pass alongside bundled promotions, there is no wonder why players go for the subscription. This initiative has also proven to open player’s interest to other genre they would have never played according to a recent report. The same can also be said for Sony with PlayStation Now as streaming games also has a home on PlayStation: recently introducing 2018’s God of War, numbers have also shown to rise with the revamp of the service. Now more recently, Google also took this approach with Stadia, however, the service only got so far as numbers have proven to be lacking upon the poorly executed performance of software and limiting library. And now, it looks that Amazon as well will be joining the game streaming market too. According to a report from CNET, the online shopping conglomerate is planning to reveal a similar initiative for players to pay a flat monthly fee for a lineup of popular titles to choose from. Discovering this new service from two anonymous individuals well-informed on the matter share that Amazon is already hiring persons of interest from the industry to assist in the service launch for 2020. Job listings at Amazon also share to be discussing some new territory that the company wants to enter as deciphered from the description. “We believe the evolution that began with arcade communities a quarter at a time, growing to the live streams and e-sports of today, will continue to a future where everyone is a gamer and every gamer can create, compete, collaborate and connect with others at massive scales.” While a separate listing elsewhere talks specifically on the matter, stating to “drive innovative new use cases like machine vision and game streaming.” Even more so, another states that Amazon is looking to go a step even further with proper integration of their own acquired Twitch in some way as well. Upon Amazon trying to innovate the gaming market in some way is quite the surprise when reflecting on the company’s own video game development studio. Earlier this Summer it was reported that the studio let go an abundance of employees go from Amazon Game Studios. However, on the other side of the operation, a MMO inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was discovered to be well on its way which was reassuring for the team following the previous mass firing. What do you think of an Amazon version of Stadia hitting the market? Source: CNET

Report: Microsoft Still Plans To Ship Stream-based Project Lockhart Alongside Project Scarlett Next Holiday

Following the premature rumors that sprouted prior to this year’s E3 throughout the course of 2019, it wasn’t until June that Microsoft officially disclosed that Project Scarlett is in fact the company’s next installment for the Xbox platform into the next generation of console hardware. However, while some rumors were to be true, some were left unanswered at the time. That was for the lesser-powerful codenamed ‘Project Lockhart’ which stood alongside the then-dubbed ‘Project Anaconda’ which we later were introduced to be Scarlett at E3. Following that same month, Thurrot Executive Editor Brad Sams claimed to have heard from sources within Microsoft that the tagged-along streaming SKU was ultimately cut from its retail release shortly after Scralett’s announcement. Which did seem to be legitmate since the second console was not showcased at this year’s annual E3 press conference. But now in a recent report from Kotaku, it seems that might not be true after all. According to Kotaku Jason Scheier, Microsoft is still on board to ship Project Lockhart after all despite the previous claims telling otherwise. Speaking with a developer who is familiar with the unannounced hardware, they tell that Lockhart shows similarities to the current PlayStation 4 Pro. Although the unit will hold as an successor to the ongoing Xbox One S, the console is equipped with a solid-state drive alike the upcoming Project Scarlett as well as PlayStation 5. So current obstacles like load times are expected to be minimized with the addition. As for aimed metrics for both consoles being developed by Microsoft, the beefier Project Scarlett is targeted to perform with 4K resolution output and 120 frames-per-second while the stream-focused Project Lockhart is said to achieve a lesser 1440p resolution and 6 frames-per-second. The unit is also said to have a faster CPU faster “than any current video game console,” which would provide for more frames each second despite the lacking strength in core hardware that the heavier Scarlett is expected to perform with. However, while developers are expected to develop for both consoles, some believe that this might hinder the full potential that the teams plan to achieve with Scarlett on the one side. Of course, Lockhart will also be the milk crate that Microsoft will stand on to continue pushing for software and services as they are with the One S. So initiatives like the popular Xbox Game Pass as the console will not be equipped with a disc drive will be a major pawn. Another being Project xCloud as there are no physical necessities for users to purchase games at standard retailers due to the streaming capabilities of the currently tested handheld companion. However, my only concern would be a larger internal hard disk drive as the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition did not ship with anything larger than 1 TB. Especially as all games will be digital, more storage will be a necessity. What are your thoughts on the potential second Xbox for the next generation of consoles? Source: Kotaku