With the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) canceled this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, video game studios and console manufacturers have been forced to seek different avenues for announcing new products for gamers to consume. To that end, Sony has announced a live streaming showcase for Thursday, June 4, during which the company will show off new titles for the upcoming PlayStation 5 console.
The Future of Gaming showcase be will streamed via Twitch and YouTube, according to GamesIndustry.biz , with an announced start time of 1 p.m. PDT. Over the course of an hour-long broadcast, the digital event will offer PlayStation fans a glimpse at various PS5 titles. Meanwhile, Sony has said that there will be additional updates in the future.
For his part, Ampere Analysis Research Director Piers Harding-Rolls told GI that he expects Sony to make a strong showing on Thursday and build upon momentum previously generated by other PS5 announcements.
“I’m expecting Thursday’s PlayStation 5 event to be a strong showing for Sony, and to build on the recent momentum of interest already delivered by the PS5 DualSense controller reveal, the PS5 logo reveal and the Unreal Engine 5 playable demo,” he said.
Harding-Rolls continued, saying that the titles revealed here by Sony, as well as those shared in the coming weeks by the company and its competitor Microsoft, will go a long way toward informing gamers about what they can expect from the next-gen consoles.
“I’m expecting a more competitive line up of first-party content between Sony and Microsoft next-gen, so the next few weeks and months of reveals should have a lot to offer the console gamer and give us a better idea of how the platforms will perform in the market.”
The PS5 was announced in 2019 with an expected launch date at the end of 2020, but the subsequent spread of the novel coronavirus had left the system’s timetable for release in question. However, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan told GamesIndustry.biz this week that the console will launch this year globally, and maintained that its first-party games are on schedule as well.
In addition to its impressive hardware specs, the PS5 promises to yield new innovations in terms of how consumers play games and interact with the console. As previously reported by The Inquisitr , a recent rumor suggested that every game on the PlayStation Store would be available for players to try out for free before buying, thus eliminating the need to download a traditional demo.