At its E3 media briefing today in Los Angeles, Calif., Sony announced that it would bring a $99 gaming and media box to the U.S., Canada and Europe this fall.
Sony’s $99 TV Box Is No Longer Just for Japan
A PlayStation twist on Amazon’s Fire TV or the Apple TV, if Apple’s box had games.
Eric Johnson
The short version: It’s a PlayStation twist on Amazon’s Fire TV or the Apple TV, if Apple’s box had games.
The device, called PlayStation TV, debuted last year as a Japanese exclusive called the PS Vita TV. Sony Computer Entertainment of America president Shawn Layden said the western version of the device will be able to play “nearly 1,000 games at launch.”
That’s in spite of not having an optical disc drive like the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles. Instead, the PlayStation TV will stream games from a PlayStation 4 connected elsewhere in the home, or from Sony’s PlayStation Now cloud gaming service.
PS Now is currently in private beta, but will enter open beta in the U.S. and Canada on July 31.
Most of the trailers at Sony’s media event seemed aimed at older players, with blood and gore galore. However, the PlayStation TV seems to be aimed at younger players, with shout-outs for two of the games coming to the system, Disney Infinity 2 and the Lego Movie Video Game.
A $139 bundle will include the device, one controller, an 8 gigabyte memory card and a digital download code for the Lego game.
The box will also be able to access media apps, Layden said, but he didn’t name any specifics.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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