Company expanding its PlayStation Vue online TV service to Los Angeles and San Francisco
By Derrik J. Lang, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Nathan Drake is back in action.
Sony capped off its game-filled Electronic Entertainment Expo briefing Monday night with a bullet-riddled demonstration of "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End," the forthcoming action-adventure installment featuring the charismatic treasure hunter.
The preview showed Drake and mentor Victor "Sully" Sullivan engaging in a firefight on foot before evading enemies through city streets in a jeep.
Sony kept most of the focus of its trade show presentation on games coming to the PlayStation 4 console, demonstrating on stage such titles as the sci-fi exploration game "No Man's Sky" and the impressionistic platformer "The Last Guardian," a title that was originally teased six years ago at E3 2009.
"I could not be happier standing here today," said Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. "You don't know how long I have waited for this moment."
Other games promoted Monday included a new rendition of "Hitman," military shooter sequel "Call of Duty: Black Ops 3," quirky first-person exploration game "Firewatch," cavewoman-versus-robots romp "Horizon: Zero Dawn" and a high-definition remake of "Final Fantasy VII."
Yu Suzuki, the director of the beloved "Shenmue" series, came on stage to petition gamers to crowd-fund a "Shenmue 3" nearly 15 years after open-world "Shenmue 2" was released.
Project Morpheus, Sony's virtual reality headset that works in concert with the PS4, was only briefly mentioned during the presentation. The gaming and electronics giant previously announced the VR system would be out in spring 2016 but hasn't specified a price.
Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, said a multiplayer arena battle game for Morpheus called "Rigs" would be available for attendees to try this week on the floor of the E3 show at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
"It's e-sports, Morpheus-style," House said.
Beyond games, Sony declared it was expanding its PlayStation Vue online TV service to Los Angeles and San Francisco on Monday night, broadening availability from when it launched in March in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. The cable alternative, starting at $50 a month, includes local TV stations affiliated with CBS, NBC, Fox, and pay TV channels such as AMC, Bravo, CNN and Comedy Central. The service is available on PS4 and PlayStation 3 consoles.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More