PlayStation Experience in Las Vegas celebrates 20 years of gaming

Fans of Sony’s PlayStation gaming platforms gathered in Las Vegas last weekend to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first console, released in Japan on December 3, 1994. The inaugural PlayStation Experience (PSX) took over the Sands Convention Centre for two days and thousands of people paid US$50 for one day (US$90 for both) to attend. 

The weekend kicked off with a keynote presentation filled with trailers for upcoming games, announcements, and demos, including an extensive demo of Uncharted 4, coming from Naughty Dog next year. Also featured were other PlayStation exclusives such as Bloodborne, The Order: 1886, Tearaway Unfolded, and Drawn to Death, the new game from David Jaffe, the director of God of War and God of War II.

Key indie titles coming to PlayStation include No Man’s Sky and What Remains of Edith Finch, from the studio that developed The Unfinished Swan. Toronto’s Capy Games is bringing Super Time Force Ultra to PS4 and PS Vita in the spring, with Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s worldwide studios, as a playable character. 

Electronic Arts representative Peter Moore was on hand to wish PlayStation a happy birthday and announce three games were free through the weekend, and Capcom announced that the only game console Street Fighter V will appear on is the PS4. 

After the two hour opening presentation, the exhibition hall, with some 800 booths with games to play, was opened. There were tournaments for Ultra Street Fighter IV, The Last of Us, and an opportunity to play the first Destiny expansion, The Dark Below, before it was released. 

There was a sizable area of the exhibition hall set aside for independent developers to show their games, all of which are coming to one PlayStation platform or another, including A Night in the Woods, being codeveloped by Vancouver’s Alec Holowka, and two games from Vancouver studios, RocketsRocketsRockets, from Radiant Games, and Darkets Dungeon, from Red Hook Studios.

The weekend also included a series of panel discussions, all geared towards fans and illuminating the development process or giving gamers a chance to learn more about their favourite games and the studios that made them. 

The numbers of attendees and goodwill reported by developers who were on hand to mill with their fans indicated that the PSX was an enormous success. It was like Comic-con crossed with E3, an opportunity for Sony to focus all the gaming attention on itself for a weekend. I won’t be surprised if it becomes an annual event. And I won’t be surprised if Microsoft is already thinking about when to hold a similar celebration for Xbox fans.