Sony lays it out at Gamescom

Let’s get the big Sony Playstation news out of the way. Minecraft will be a launch title for the PS4! Whew. That’s done, so that leaves us with the ho-hum stuff.

Sony presented a lot of games at Gamescom. Killzone Shadow Fall, Watch Dogs, Rime, a reimagined Shadow of the Beast, Hotline Miami 2, Rogue Legacy, Gran Turismo 6, and a host of other promising looking titles either had trailers or quick snippets of gameplay. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was used to show off the PS4 to Vita feature.

Speaking of the Playstation handheld, Sony announced a price drop. The new price of the Vita in the US will be $199. (That’s 199 Euros as well thanks to wacky pricing math.) Sony Europe’s CEO, Jim Ryan, said there would be a price drop for the Vita memory cards as well.

Free Twitch streaming support for the PS4 sharing feature was announced. Only Ustream support had been announced at E3 for the console, so that’s welcome news for gamers with a streaming preference.

SCEA president Andrew House revealed that Sony will offer a discount plan for gamers that purchase titles on PS3 and then later wish to upgrade to PS4 versions of the same games. While he didn’t have any specifics, he did say that Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Warner Bros are participating.

Finally, despite rumors of an earlier than expected October release date, Sony fizzled by confirming a November launch for the PS4. The US launch will be November 15th, while the date for Europe will be November 29th.