Inclusive: Sony @ gamescom 2014

Sony's conference started off with several game trailers, Infamous: First Light, The Order 1886 and Bloodborne gameplay trailer. Jim Ryan then started the conference and stated that this year Sony will do gamescom a bit differently. Some of the major highlights of the presser was:

• Sony announced worldwide sale of 10 million PS4 to consumer
• Firmware 2.0 will provide SharePlay and Youtube app support 
• Playstation Now will come to Europe, UK beta early 2015
• Playstation TV will launch in Europe, November 2014
• Hideo Kojima on stage to showed off some hilarious cardboard box techniques for MGS V
• Until Dawn action-based survival horror relaunched for PS4
• Mike Bithell spoke about his new game, Volume
• P.T. from 7780s was announced (turned out to be a cool new way for a game reveal)
• Gameplay Trailer Debuts for: Bloodborne, Destiny Multiplayer, RIME, The Order 1886(Tesla)
• New IP announcements by
• Ninja Theory: Hellblade 
• Housemarque: Alienation
• Q-Games: Tomorrow Children
• Media Molecule:Tearaway Unfolded
• Wild Sheep: formed by Michel Ancel, developer from Ubisoft: WiLD

Sony's presser had a lot of content to cover and this year pacing was excellent. Games bam, trailer, bam. No long waffling about numbers or products no one really cared. In fact, this year's conference was even shorter than Microsoft's. One thing I noticed this time round, Sony didn't bother too much about giving long introductions, except for Hideo Kojima, some of the folks just come up on stage after a trailer, Far Cry 4. If this is the new way of Sony conference, please keep doing it.

Notably absent was any major announcements related to PS VITA, although Sony later commented that many games are still incoming for the platform, for example Minecraft Vita should ready anytime soon.

Microsoft may won gamescom 2014 on showmanship (Tomb Raider exclusive) but I prefer the Sony way. They seems to understand what the gaming audience want. We like to see companies bring games to their platform, not deny other platforms their games. Be inclusive instead of exclusive.

We prefer to see and hear about interesting games. We love to see developers like Michel Ancel or Mike Bithell on stage to talk about their new games rather than ex-Man Utd goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, talking about this years' FIFA.