New York Comic Con 2014 had all sorts of digital media surprises, including one from Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN). The online multiplayer gaming and digital media distribution hub revealed the trailer for its first original series, Powers.
Starring Sharlto Copley, Susan Heyward, and Eddie Izzard, the show is based on the comic book of the same name, first published in April 2000 under Image comics (but it’s since moved to Marvel’s Icon) and written by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming. Powers’s ten episodes will tell the story of detectives in charge of investigating the supernatural crimes of powerful, other-worldly beings. Sony Pictures Television and Circle of Confusion will both produce the series, which will debut on PSN sometime in December 2014.
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PlayStation may be the first gaming console to release exclusive programming for its subscribers with powerful foray into digital series. Earlier this year, it seemed Microsoft’s XBox Entertainment Studios would be taking the helm in the direct-to-gamer-and-the-living-room premium content arena, offering original series from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Seth Green, and Sarah Silverman. However, the Xbox Studios initiative fell through almost before it even started. The now defunct studio has said it will release its already completed projects (like Signal To Noise, about the Atari cartridges buried in a New Mexico desert), but nothing’s hit the web just yet.
Only time will tell if Powers (and any other online video projects PSN may have up its sleeve) will help Sony succeed where Microsoft fell short.
