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by David Nieves

In what would have been a better announcement for San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel architect Brian Michael Bendis took the stage in the LA Sports Arena for Sony’s E3 Press Conference last night. He was up there to talk about his and co-creator Michael Avon Oeming’s series Powers. Sony made the announcement that Powers, the TV show, would be coming as content to Playstation. Though no trailer was shown, Bendis did have some concept art to show the crowd. Powers was announced to debut in December and PlayStation owners who subscribe to the PlayStation Plus service will get to see every episode for free. The TV series will take the form of a live-action, hour-long show, with approximately 10 episodes in the first season. Charlie Huston is the scriptwriter on the pilot, and former Falling Skies head writer Remi Aubuchon is on board to share showrunner duties with Huston.  Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming are credited as executive producers.

Being in the arena to hear the news was great, it truly felt like a big announcement. However, it seemed a bit out of place both for the event and it’s place in the program. With only concept art to go with the announcement and no casting news, one couldn’t help but think this would have been a much bigger deal next month at SDCC. As far as where they put Bendis in the lineup; he was brought on stage after the crowd had become amp’ed on Destiny and Little Big Planet news. In a room full of gamers, only a small fraction of the audience cared enough about the announcement to cheer. Sony didn’t seem to realize that a room full of gamers and a room full of comic book fans aren’t always the same audience.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the moon that Powers is even coming to TV. The series was fantastic, and it still holds up to this date. Watching Bendis on stage you couldn’t help but ask what PlayStation was thinking doing this now with almost nothing to show. Sony is sure to have a little more to announce on this next month in San Diego but for now let’s enjoy Bendis in a suit.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. I’d argue that E3 is the BETTER place for an announcement like this, if the goal is to gain a new audience.

    Wouldn’t SDCC just be preaching to the converted? Telling the same/expected/obvious audience to check it out?

    This way you’re reaching out to a new potential market. This is a way to get PlayStation users to check out comic book related content/entertainment.

    The flipside, if you announce it at SDCC, what you’re really doing is telling comic book fans that they need to buy PS4’s to check out content they’re already interested in.
    And it’s not like this won’t be brought up at SDCC.
    So why let the window of E3 go by?
    See what I’m saying?

  2. So cool! Now I just have to get a PS4… :(

    Well, sounds like the eps will be available for a price somewhere, so I’ll be buying them.

  3. I was thinking the exact same thing when they brought Bendis out, “Why wouldn’t you have just saved this for a month for an event that people would have been way more excited about it for.”

    I’m pretty sure it’s going to be free for all PS Plus members on PS$ and PS3 well. If you aren’t PS Plus, it’ll likely be the cost of any regular 1 hr television program ($2.99 an episode for HD)

    At least, that’s what it seems from their blog.

  4. I feel somewhat deflated over this news. Playstation Plus? Who has that?

    So my initial reaction is, that the show must be pretty lame if only Playstation Plus picked it up? Or it’s so odd, that eventually it will leak out on the internet and I will get to watch it for free somewhere (you tube, torrent download, netflix, etc).

  5. Dan is 100% on point. Sony has a larger strategy that they need to bring to the market. The fact that PlayStation is not just a video game content provider, but that they’re also offering television. Those media outlets are at E3. The audience for this show are listening right now. It was the right thing to do. And as we can see, the comic outlets will pick it up, regardless of when it’s announced because it’s their beat. So that’s covered.

  6. @Paul: “I feel somewhat deflated over this news. Playstation Plus? Who has that?”

    Sony won’t give exact numbers, but recently said that over half of 4.2 million PS4 owners have Playstation Plus. That’s still fairly small in comparison to Netflix’s 30 million or so subscribers, but developing original series is a good strategy for growing their number of subscribers if they’re interested in becoming another streaming “channel.”

    What would make Playstation Plus different from Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime is that they give you about a dozen free games up front when you join the service, and rotate those out to give you four new ones each month (though you also keep all the old ones for as long as you’re a subscriber). At this point I have more free games through the service than I’ve had time to play.

    For people interested in the Powers series who don’t want to plunk down several hundred for a PS3 or PS4, the newly announced Playstation TV for $99 might not be a bad option. It’ll let you watch the show, and with Playstation Plus you’ll get new Vita games to play on it each month, plus whatever PS3 games the upcoming Playstation Now service lets you stream.

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