‘Dust 514’ Release Date Slip

A seemingly innocuous comment in a television interview may have just leaked the release date for one of 2012’s most anticipated games.

IGN user Uzair Syed tipped off the video game news site to an interview on Fox Business with Jack Tretton, the CEO and president of Sony Computer Entertainment America. During the interview, Tretton was asked about the shift towards cheaper and free-to-play games in the industry. The CEO responded by talking about the “Dust 514,” the upcoming, free-to-play Playstation 3 exclusive shooter from developer CCP.

“Dust 514” has been in both open and closed beta for many months, but no release date for an official launch had been given. Until now, that is.

Tretton said, “We do have free-to-play games. A game called “Dust 514” is a full-blown first-person shooter available on PlayStation 3 that not only allows you to play against your friends on PS3, but also against people on the PC.” The interviewer then asked for clarification on whether the game was called “Dust” or “Dusk.” Tretton said that it was indeed Dust and that it would be “Coming out next month.”

This is far from the first time unreleased details have accidentally been released to the public during interviews with those in the video game industry. In fact, Sony in particular, is notorious for being unable to keep secrets, so this hardly comes as a surprise to anyone in the know. Except for CCP, possibly, which has given no hints as to when to expect their game to have its official release.

However, Tretton’s slip is our gain as we now have a possible release date for one of the biggest and most ambitious Playstation 3 releases of this year. CCP has yet to comment on whether or not the Sony president’s assertion was correct.

Tretton also released some other interesting data about Sony during the interview. There are over 100 million Playstation Network accounts registered across the globe and of those, 44 million are in the United States alone. Meanwhile, the Playstation Vita has sold 2.2 million units worldwide while the Playstation 3 has shifted 63.9 million total with 21 million of those having been sold in the U.S.