The house of PlayStation held a State of Play live broadcast just yesterday afternoon, taking a similar approach to Nintendo’s Direct presentations. Sony’s 20-minute livestream introduced us to some new PS VR games alongside several new trailers, and for the company’s first time doing something like this, it was short and sweet.
Fans around the world definitely had some high expectations for the company, hoping for some sort of news about The Last of Us Part 2 or Ghosts of Tsushima –two games that are sort of in limbo at the moment, with no release date or even scheduled year.
Since Sony is skipping out on E3 this year, the pressure was on for the company to blow fans away during this mini-E3 presentation, but from looking back at all of the games that were announced during the broadcast, it seems that Sony didn’t do anything to shock people or make waves, but I think it was just okay, not bad like everyone else seems to think.
If you look at the State of Play YouTube video on PlayStation’s channel, then you can see that the video has over 11,000 dislikes and only about 5,000 likes –ouch.
The internet needs to chill the heck out. This was their first State of Play broadcast, with more to come soon, so give them a break. Nintendo’s been doing this sort of thing for a very long time now. If you don’t remember, the first Direct goes way back to 2011, yes 2011.
Nintendo has had a long time to somewhat “perfect” the formula that they’ve been doing for almost 10 years now. This was Sony’s first try at this whole live broadcast announcement stream thing.
But we definitely should have seen bigger reveals from the company that houses franchises like Uncharted, God of War, and The Last of Us. It was expected from the fan-base and when people don’t get their high expectations met, there’s bound to be trouble.
Sony should have known that this was bound to happen if they only showed off VR games and one or two release date reveals. One way to remedy that issue would be to tell people beforehand what to expect from the presentation. If it was exclaimed from the get-go, there might have been less backlash towards State of Play’s first time in the spotlight.
This livestream was probably just a test for them to figure out how this would all come together. I’m sure that they see the negative reactions toward the video and will patch things up for next time, so they can be prepared for an above average announcement of news.
And listen, there was a ton of good stuff revealed/announced during State of Play. We got a new trailer and release date for Concrete Genie, the first look at Iron Man VR, a deeper dive into Days Gone, and a couple of other small-scale projects.
Was I hoping to see more of The Last of Us Part 2? Yes, yes I was. But once the broadcast started and I saw what was being announced, my expectations were lowered, drastically, and I think fans should start doing the same.
Sony showed off a couple of reasons for people to pick up a PS VR system (if they haven’t already), announced release dates for games that we’ve been waiting for for a while now, and created a new gaming event that brings people together every couple of months to tune in.
Sony’s State of Play was just fine. It wasn’t amazing or jaw-dropping but it gives PlayStation a new way to give us information directly without the need of a flashy press conference or clumsy live gameplay. It’s pre-recorded, like Nintendo Directs are, and spoon-feeds us what the company needs to present to us.
Not every presentation needs to have the level of hype of an E3 showcase, but I will say one thing: Sony needs to step it up just a bit if they plan on making these broadcasts a must-watch.
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