It's hard to believe, but Sony's PlayStation 4 is now one year old.
As first years go, PS4's was great for Sony, selling considerably more units than the electronics titan expected and consistently outselling Microsoft's Xbox One month after month. While truly next-generation games were a long time coming, Destiny, Shadow of Mordor, Advanced Warfare, and Assassin's Creed Unity (buggy as it as) have finally heralded the console's arrival.
Happy Birthday, PlayStation 4! Here's a look back at the major events of your first year.
November 15, 2013: PS4 launches in North America
In the United States alone, more than one million units are sold in its first 24 hours. Europe gets its hands on PS4 on November 29, followed by February 22, 2014 for Japan.
March 19, 2014: Sony unveils Project Morpheus
At the Game Developers Conference, Sony showed off its vision of virtual reality. Put simply, Project Morpheus is Sony's direct answer to Oculus Rift's VR goggles. At the time these words are being written, there is still no release date or pricing information available for Morpheus. One assumes it will likely get into consumers' hands in 2015.
March 19, 2014: Powers announced
Also at GDC, Sony jumped on the streaming programming bandwagon by announcing its very first original TV show for PlayStation users. And they scored some serious geek cred when the show was unveiled. It's the long-in-the-making Powers, based on the popular comic book about homicide detectives who live in a world that has superheroes.
June 9, 2014: Sony wins E3
Microsoft's bungled Xbox One launch was not helped by its anemic E3 performance, but PlayStation 4's already high profile managed to shoot even higher. Sony stunned gamers with announcements of one PS4 exclusive after another, including LittleBigPlanet 3, Bloodborne, and the long-awaited first look at Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Indie downloadable No Man's Sky wowed audiences with its nigh-infinite galaxy to explore, and Sony pulled on the heartstrings of old school gamers everywhere with the out-of-nowhere shock that DoubleFine is upgrading its PC adventure classic Grim Fandango exclusively for PS4.
July 17, 2014: The Destiny Beta
At exactly 1:00 PM Eastern, Bungie's heavily-hyped beta test for Destiny officially began — and PS4 users got to play for several days before Xbox One gamers were granted entrance. Over the next ten days, the beta was a resounding success, welcoming more than 4.6 million players and breaking records for MMO betas.
July 31, 2014: PlayStation Now open for business
With very little fanfare, Sony's acquisition of streaming game service Gaikai finally comes to fruition with the launch of the PlayStation Now open beta on PS4. Gamers and critics are mostly pleasantly surprised at the service's quality and responsiveness.
August 12, 2014: Gamescom is another big win
Not content to rest on its electrifying E3 showing, Sony shows up at Germany's massive Gamescom show with even more new titles coming exclusively to PlayStation 4, many of which are download-only. They include Until Dawn, WiLD, The Tomorrow Children, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and more.
August 24, 2014: PSN goes down
PSN's servers are taken down by a DDOS attack from some weirdos striking fear into the hearts of no one with the moniker "Lizard Squad." Um, yeah. Unlike the infamous PSN server outage that knocked out service for PS3 users in April 2011 for almost a full month, Sony redeemed itself by repairing this outage in well under 24 hours.
October 17, 2014: PS4 2.0 software
Sony releases the second full version of its PS4 operating system, which adds the awesome Share Play feature along with several other new functions.
November 13, 2014: PlayStation Vue unveiled
Sony announces PlayStation Vue, an online television service that will to go head-to-head with cable and satellite companies in 2015. Vue boasts an impressive lineup of popular channels, but HBO and Disney properties are noticeably absent. Users and critics take a wait-and-see approach to Vue, but it has the potential to be a game-changer for cord-cutters.
All that in only one year! Its's impossible to tell what is next for the PS4, but if this past year was any indication, you can expect big things in Sony's future.
Photos: Sony, Activision/Bungie
