PlayStation: The Best Place to Play

Millions of PlayStation fans around the world just watched our annual E3 press conference — marking the beginning to what will be an incredible week at E3 — and saw the amazing gaming and entertainment experiences coming to PlayStation in the near future. Above all else, what we showed tonight is our relentless focus on gamers and PlayStation’s long-standing legacy to building a gaming universe without boundaries.

One of the highlights of our event tonight was the official unveil of the PlayStation 4 system and price of $399. The PS4 design is sleek and functional, and contains a powerful system architecture that will enable the industry’s best developers to create amazing titles. Our Worldwide Studios team has more than 30 PS4 exclusive titles in development, 20 of which will launch during the first year of PS4. The PS4 games feature 12 completely new IPs, including a game we unveiled tonight… The Order: 1886 from Ready at Dawn. We also provided updates to other exciting PS4 titles #DRIVECLUB, inFAMOUS: Second Son, Killzone: Shadow Fall, and Knack.

PS4 has incredible strength among the development community, and some of the best teams in the world displayed their ground-breaking games. Bungie Studios showed, for the first-time ever, live gameplay of the highly anticipated Destiny; Ubisoft featured Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Watch_Dogs; Square Enix showed Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy XV; and Warner Bros. showed the world premiere for Mad Max. We also reinforced our support for independent and smaller developers with nine new titles that will debut exclusively on PlayStation 4.

It’s clear that you’ll have no shortage of games to play when PS4 launches. Globally there are more than 140 games in development for PS4 across our own Worldwide Studios and our development partners, including over 100 that will be available within the first year.

We also announced that PlayStation Plus memberships will carry over to PlayStation 4, so members will have access to all of the benefits across PS3, PS Vita and PS4 for one price. These benefits include online multiplayer access, exclusive discounts, cloud game saves, and Instant Game Collection, which gives members a selection of games to discover and enjoy with their friends. To celebrate the launch of PlayStation Plus on PS4, we will offer #DRIVECLUB PS Plus Edition in the Instant Game Collection.

Sony Pictures Entertainment joined us onstage to announce that it is working on new original programming and unique access to entertainment content on PSN and PS4. Sony Pictures Entertainment is one of the most powerful entertainment brands in the world and we look forward to bringing our fans curated content that they’ll love.

In just over a year since its launch, we’ve built a library of more than 125 PS Vita dedicated games and the platform will only get stronger in the coming year. More than 85 games will launch by the end of the year, including The Walking Dead, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, CounterSpy, Destiny of Spirits, Doki Doki, Killzone: Mercenary and Tearaway.

The PlayStation 3 is heading into its 7th holiday season and our commitment is stronger than ever. The PS3 game lineup today is huge, starting this Friday with Game of the Year candidate The Last of Us, which is now the highest rated game for all platforms for 2012 and 2013. We have more than 300 other titles that will launch before the end of the year, such as Beyond: Two Souls, Rain, Puppeteer, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Gran Turismo 6. In addition, we announced a PS3 bundle for Grand Theft Auto V and a new GTAV branded Pulse Elite headset that comes with an exclusive GTA soundscape.

It’s truly a remarkable time at PlayStation. We’re on the verge of launching the most powerful gaming system ever built with the PS4 and the entire PlayStation ecosystem is expanding with the continued growth and strength of PS Vita, PS3 and PlayStation Network. I want to thank PlayStation Nation for your passion and continued support. You’re the reason we continue to innovate, explore new entertainment possibilities and push the boundaries of play. I look forward to sharing more exciting details in the near future.

Jack Tretton