Hey, are you getting this weird feeling that, for Sony and Microsoft, a whole lot is hinging on E3 this year? I mean, don't get me wrong, every E3 has the opportunity to be pivotal when it comes to a platform's overall "story." Between price cuts and game announcements, these situations can turn on a dime. I guess what I'm getting at is that it doesn't really feel like either company has that much going on right now. And with Sony having very little in terms of announced products right now combined with Uncharted 4 getting bumped into 2016, I find myself wondering what the hell PlayStation 4 owners are going to be playing this holiday season. (Or, at least, what they'll be playing that you can't play anywhere else).
Obviously, it's a bad time of the year to be looking at this sort of thing. We're in the lull before E3 comes in and, theoretically, brings with it a lot of new game announcements. But even taking that into account, when it comes to Sixty-Dollar Games That Are Available On A Disc (which are the sorts of things that usually make the big splashes at something like E3, though that's changing), things feel a little slim on the Xbox One and PS4 right now. The Uncharted 4 delay means that Sony's announced-and-dated PS4 lineup seems to run out in March, when MLB 15: The Show and Bloodborne ship to stores.
Of course, Gran Turismo 7 has been mentioned as a release for sometime in 2015 or 2016... which to me sounds like 2016, if not 2017. And then there's... uh... The Last Guardian? That's still a game, right? Of course, there are more teams in the Sony system that are currently working on unannounced projects, too. (Hopefully it isn't just another God of War game).
So yes, it's a bad time to look at this list, because one would think that E3 would bring with it some actual announcements. And there are plenty of obvious perennials that haven't opened up for pre-orders or been announced yet, like EA's sports lineup or Call of Duty, which make this list look slimmer than it should be. But looking at this list makes me feel like Sony probably needs to come with the thunder during E3 and get some first-party stuff on the docket ASAP. Or maybe they're just content to let it be a third-party machine? I mean, I feel like the PS4 has the best controller in games right now, but that probably isn't enough, considering the vast majority of the other games on the platform show up on PC and/or Xbox One.
This list consists of every PS4 game that is currently listed on GameStop's calendar, dated or undated. It's obviously not perfect, but since they're a game-focused retailer, they're usually a decent indicator of what's coming up, what has a firm date, and what's still slipping around. I could go through and add more likely candidates to this list, like Call of Duty and Rock Band 4, but let's avoid additional speculation and just go with what's there for now. We can speculate and talk about informed guesses for 2015 games later.
March
- Final Fantasy Type-0 HD
- MLB 15: The Show
- Bloodborne
- Battlefield Hardline
- Resident Evil Revelations 2
- Bladestorm: Nightmare
- Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
- Toukiden: Kiwami
April
May
June
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
- Onechanbara Z2: Chaos
- PGA Tour
- Payday 2
- LEGO Jurassic World
- Batman: Arkham Knight
July
August
- Absolutely nothing!
September
October
November
- Nope! (Obviously this one will change as more games get announced).
March 2016
- Uncharted 4
No Date, But They'll Happily Accept Your Pre-Order Money (How Kind!)
- Dead Island 2
- Tom Clancy's The Division
- Until Dawn
- Just Cause 3
- Battleborn
- Homefront: The Revolution
- J-Stars Victory VS+
- Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4
- One Piece Pirate Warriors 3
- Dragon Quest Heroes
The Xbox One list on GameStop looks roughly identical, but Forza Motorsport 6 and Halo 5: Guardians are on the list and stuff like Disgaea 5 and J-Stars Victory VS+ aren't there. Rise of the Tomb Raider also isn't there, but that's supposed to hit Microsoft's platforms this holiday, too. Though that certainly isn't a huge number of games, at least you can say that Halo is one of those big-ass "marquee" franchises that can at least feel like a big deal. And I guess that last Tomb Raider was popular. Meanwhile, Nintendo will keep on doing its own thing with the Wii U and 3DS, which gets increasingly exciting as time goes on. Personally, I'm pulling for Splatoon, it seemed really cool at E3 last year. Regardless of all that? It's slim pickings if you're looking for big things on the "new" consoles. I don't know about you, but all of this pushes my interest in E3 this year up a bit. Between the obvious games that haven't been announced or shown yet and the potential for actual new announcements, it should be an interesting year one way or the other. Potentially pivotal, even! Maybe we'll come out of E3 understanding why we spent all that money on new consoles, or maybe it'll be the E3 where everyone threw up their hands and said "well, guess it's time to build a living room PC."
This article brought to you by the fact that I'm already in some meetings about our E3 plans and now I officially have E3 on the brain whether I like it or not. We're planning to extend our livestream nights out a bit to handle the Bethesda press conference on Sunday night and we're hoping to find a location that's less, like, echo-y than our big-ass room from last year. We'll see how it goes.