Digital versions of PS4 games Knack and Warframe up for pre-order on PS Store

With the North American and European launches of the PlayStation 4 being a little more than a month away, Sony has announced that a couple of the next-gen console’s games are up for pre-order. While this may not sound any different when compared to, for instance, the next-gen version of Assassin’s Creed 4, what’s interesting here is the fact that these are pre-orders for the digital versions of games.

According to Sony’s tweet, platforming game Knack and the free-to-play Warframe are up for pre-order on the PlayStation Store, which is accessible both through the PlayStation 3 as well as through a regular desktop browser. Knack will set buyers back by $59.99 (Rs 3,704 approx). If pre-ordered, the games will automatically start downloading on a PlayStation 4 the moment you link your PlayStation Network account to it. The company has also revealed that the digital versions of more games will be made available for pre-order in the coming weeks.

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It is telling, however, since PlayStation Network hasn’t been Sony’s strongest suit in this console generation. PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara, however, has promised that the company has improved on the service for the upcoming PS4.

“First of all, it is definitely going to grow as a means of consumption,” Gara said. “And there are big innovations in the PS4 to make it more attractive and more easy gamer wise to want to download.

“The Play as you Download functionality, for example, means you don’t need the whole file before you go. This is a little bit counterbalanced by the fact the files themselves are getting bloody big. Killzone: Shadow Fall is an uber file - I think it’s cracking on for 50GB. It looks it, too, when you see it. [Downloading games] is still a relatively tedious process. We’ve done a lot of work on pre-delivering files. It’s not perfect. It’s not seamless.”