Sony At Gamescom 2012 – All The Announcements

If you’ve been watching our live stream you’ll know that Sony’s gamescom 2012 press conference in Cologne, Germany has just come to a close. There were plenty of big announcements to take in, so, in the interest of putting everything tidily in one place, here’s a comprehensive rundown of all the news.

We’ve also got individual posts from many of the developers concerned – please follow the links below to learn more about the games in question. And, of course, we’ll be going into more detail on all these titles later this week and into next, right here on PlayStation Blog.

So, without further ado:

Brand new titles:

• LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule took the lid of its keenly anticipated new project: Vita title Tearaway. See our dedicated post from the Guildford, UK studio for a closer look.
• Puppeteer is on its way to PlayStation 3 from Sony’s Japan Studios. Developer Gavin Moore introduces this charming, eccentric platformer below.
• Looking for a PlayStation 3 teen horror fix? Move-enabled spine-tingler Until Dawn is incoming from Supermassive Games – let the game’s Executive Creative Director Will Byles tell you more.
• Also coming out of Sony’s Japan Studio, Rain is a dark, atmospheric and breathtakingly stylish new PSN title. We’ll be talking much more about this game in the coming months.
• We offered up your first glimpse of Killzone: Mercenary for PS Vita. Read more from developer Guerrilla Games here.

Vita Cross-Buy:

• As of later this year, buy the PlayStation 3 version of a compatible game and you’ll be able to download the Vita version at no additional cost. PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale, Ratchet & Clack: QForce (yes, that’s now a Vita title too) and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time are the first games confirmed to support this new feature.

PS One Classics on PS Vita:

• Yes, you’ve been asking for it! From 28th August you’ll be able to play select PSOne titles on your Vita. Titles confirmed so far: Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil 2.

New PS Vita firmware

• Vita firmware 1.8 is on its way. See our dedicated post for full details of what to expect.

New characters showcased for PlayStation All-Stars:

• A few new additions to the brawler’s burgeoning roster for you: Sackboy, Dante from Devil May Cry, Spike from Ape Escape, and Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank. See our post from developer SuperBot to find out more.

New trailer for The Last Of Us:

• Check it out below!

God of War: Ascension:

• There’s a multiplayer beta incoming for Kratos’ latest PlayStation 3 adventure, and a brand new trailer to wrap your eyes around.

Wonderbook:

• After E3’s Book of Spells reveal, it was the turn of stylish detective caper Diggs Nightcrawler – from Oscar-winning studio Moonbot – to take the spotlight. Disney Interactive Studios is also working on projects for the platform, as is the BBC who is readying a Walking with Dinosaurs title.

PS3 Essentials:

• Later this year we’re launching a new line of high quality catalogue titles at a reduced price of €19.99. Stay tuned for details of the first wave of releases.

New PS Vita bundles

• As well as the Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation bundle announced at E3 earlier this year, we’ve a number of other hardware packs incoming, including LittleBigPlanet Vita, PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale and Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified sets.

PlayStation Mobile:

• PlayStation Mobile launches this Autumn across a variety of PlayStation devices. A number of titles were confirmed for the service during the conference, including Super Crate Box, Aqua Kitty, Samurai Beatdown, Passing Time, BeatSlider and Flick Hockey.

PlayStation Plus:

• Your PS Plus cloud storage limit has been raised to 1GB.
• Rockstar’s peerless Western epic Red Dead Redemption joins the Instant Game Collection line-up next month.
• Lunatic Sega platformer Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit will be October’s Game of the Month.

If you’ve come to this post straight from the conference, we’ve got a fantastic panel event kicking off at 20.45 CET/19.45 BST/04.40 Sydney. Some of the biggest names in game development are joining us to chew over the ‘games as art’ debate. It will stream live below – please enjoy!