Games News: Press Start: Sony confirms PS4 launch live event, dev predicts end of CoD era, and more

Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House speaks at the PlayStation 4 unveiling in New York. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/REUTERS

A selection of links, hand-picked by the Guardian games writers.

Sony confirms PS4 launch event live stream details | CVG UK

It's starting! Sony has revealed details of its big PS4 launch event taking place in New York on 15 November:

The event - which promises to bring "premieres and announcements" - will be broadcast live via Spike TV, the PlayStation Blog and Ustream, Sony confirmed today.

The so-titled 'PS4 All Access: Greatness Awaits special event' kicks off on on November 14 at 11:00pm local time (8pm Pacific, 4am GMT on Nov. 15). As well as the global debut of the PS4, the event promises to include "exclusive world premieres and announcements about the PS4 games that will define 2014 and beyond".

US games journalism superstar Geoff Keighley will be hosting the event – reportedly not from a bubbling vat of Mountain Dew.

Avalanche boss predicts "end of an era" with CoD: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 | GameSpot

The revolution has started:

Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios founder Christofer Sundberg has spoken out to say he believes the recent release of Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 will mark the "end of an era" for the industry-leading shooter franchises.

"I predict the end of an era with #CoDGhosts and #BF4. I don't believe in the future for [Call of Duty] and I believe that [Battlefield] will live on as an [multiplayer] game," Sundberg said on Twitter today.

Asked by Eurogamer if he believes the Call of Duty franchise could continue if singleplayer and multiplayer were offered in two distinct packages, Sundberg said this could only work if the singleplayer and multiplayer experiences varied substantially.

"I don't think there is room for both unless they are DRASTICALLY different and publishers find new ways to monetize the players," Sundberg said.

Let's see how Ghosts does first, eh?

Ubisoft Montreal: Convincing a AAA studio to try "indie" games | GamesIndustry International

When Ubisoft veteran Patrick Plourde finished work on Far Cry 3 he was given the chance to pitch a project to the board. Instead of another epic big-budget action adventure, he put forward the idea for a very personal project, Child of Light, a turn-based combat game inspired by Japanese RPGs. To his delight, it was greenlit:

But a small project doesn't mean "low-profile." Plourde collaborated with well-known musicians in the local Montreal scene. That not only made the game better, but gave the project more credibility within the studio. Plourde wanted people to think of Child of Light as more "prestige" than simply small, and the approach seemed to be working. He described a sense of momentum behind the game, even in a studio as big as Ubisoft Montreal.

"It got a lot of traction, especially with people with a lot of experience, because there's a time where if you worked on like, four Assassin's Creeds and five Rainbow Sixes, or stuff like that, you go, 'You know what, I'd like to experiment with something else,'" Plourde said.

I like the idea of 'prestige' projects – sort of like limited editions or houte couture clothing; exclusive products that serve to advertise the creative ambitions of a company. It shows how deeply the 'indie' philosophy has permeated the industry.

Gerard Butler Circling Video Game Adaptation 'Kane & Lynch' for Millennium | Hollywood Reporter

Actors Gerard Butler and Vin Diesel have chanced upon a novel way to end their careers – by considering parts in a forthcoming Kane & Lynch movie:

The Nu Image/Millennium Films project, which has come and gone several times, has Gerard Butler, who starred in Millennium's hit Olympus Has Fallen, in talks to star as Kane, with F. Gary Gray on board to direct. The move could very well reteam the duo, who last worked together on the surprise 2009 action hit Law Abiding Citizen.

Millennium has an offer out to Vin Diesel to play Lynch, but it's too early to say how that will go.

I don't understand Hollywood. Why is serious consideration being given to the movie adaptation of a briefly notorious but now defunct game series? If they really want to make a movie about two charmless psychopaths butchering their way out of prison, couldn't they just start from scratch? Or maybe they could just pick another video game? Or, you know, just not bother?

The Positive Effects Games Have on Your Brain | IGN

Worried about how much time you're going to spend on the next-gen consoles? It's all okay – they're good for you! Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Charité University Medicine St. Hedwig-Krankenhaus have discovered that games are beneficial for, "spatial orientation, memory formation and strategic planning as well as fine motor skills.":

Berlin scientists tasked adult subjects to play Super Mario 64 "over a period of two months for 30 minutes a day." An MRI showed brain volume quantified in players who didn't typically play games, while folks who played games "showed increases of grey matter, in which the cell bodies of the nerve cells of the brain are situated."

Additionally, the report notes, the more someone actually wanted to play games, the more positive the effects actually had on someone. Simone Kühn, senior scientist on the study, asserts that video games can be used therapeutically for patients suffering from schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's dementia.

Of course, a lot of this has already been researched elsewhere, and the benefits of games are reasonably well-known. But every report of this nature helps to jettison those old fears that games are fundamentally evil – or at least they would if the wider media picked up on them more.

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Source: Theguardian. com

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