At the upcoming Develop conference in Brighton, UK, both Microsoft and Sony will be coming on stage to strut their goods. Specifically, Mark Cerny will actually have the honor of inaugurating this year’s event, as he talks about the PlayStation 4 in a keynote titled “20 Years of PlayStation, 40 Years of Console Games, and 100 Years to Come.”
The official conference description tells us what we can expect from the speech:
“It’s hard to believe it’s 20 years since the arrival of PlayStation. And looking today at the ubiquitous popularity of games across a multiplicity of devices, it’s equally astonishing it had taken 20 years since the pioneering 1970s consoles before a manufacturer had dared again to aspire to take console gaming truly mainstream.
“PlayStation didn’t do it all, of course – no single product, game, or game designer could claim that. But with its pop culture sensibilities, 3D graphics, CD quality nightclub-friendly soundtracks, and adult-orientated attitude, Sony’s debut console surely marked a turning point for our industry, and our aspirations.
“What have we learned so far on this incredible journey? What new doors will PlayStation 4 open in the next few years – and where do we go after that? We could hardly have two more illustrious speakers to tease out the future of our industry, and to fire us up as the conference gets underway!”
Microsoft will be speaking at this event too, as they attempt to explain the power of the cloud, and how cloud computing may be the future. “Cloud Gaming is an overloaded term which is used to refer to an assortment of game distribution and monetization models. In this talk Microsoft will suggest that by thinking more in terms of the cloud and gaming, we can settle on a set of use cases for cloud computing technologies in gaming that embraces creating new or enhanced user experiences to the shift to Games-as-a-Service. In doing so we see more clearly how cloud will become a necessary part of every game.”
They are also going to be having a second, more general discussion about the cloud, and its applications in computing, so on the whole, for anyone interested in computing on both the software and the hardware side, this year’s Develop conference should be worth tuning in to.
