Playstation 4 Kerfufflery

Stop talking at me and show me some games.

Oh Sony...You really are the sledgehammer of the games industry. In as much as that you solve all issues by throwing yourself at the wall until it breaks. If you tuned into the Sony press conference a little while back. It can be mainly summed up by first person shooty, driving and looking at cars'em up, Lego Wii music and some tech demos/ports. I had to raise my eyebrow during the conference from the general lack of direction from Sony. They went greatly out of their way to speak more about the social features of the machine than the actual application of the hardware.

So yes, now I can watch my friend play his game over the internet in real time. Call me crazy but I do not really recall being in dire need for the ability to watch my friend play the new Assassin's Creed. In all likeliness it's only going to help remove the hype of the game by having the player bumble about the level instead of moving like the Artful Dodger through their carefully scripted trailers. Or worse, show the game as a buggy, broken mess...Which is frankly becoming more and more common.

Oh...I better not forget...You apparently can jump into a person's game and play over the internet...I don't know if you would be required to own the game first or maybe it comes with a built in time limit but surely this is just going to lead to the loss of more sales? Aliens: Colonial Marines would have been in shit city had a system been in place for the release their game. Well they got called out...So I guess they are already in shit city...So just imagine something worse.

I don't know about the rest of you but I really enjoy kicking off the announcement of a new system with some wicked cool (I'm really sorry) games. Or at very least a clear distinction about the direction that this console will be making compared to it's precursor. So far the impression I am getting from the PS4 is that it's the PS3 but with more clouds and teraflops. This still does not tell me what the hell it can actually do. Nintendo was very clear with the Wii-U I thought. It's a Nintendo product where the gameplay will incorporate both screens to innovate the game experience. For better or ill, we knew what kind of experience we were roughly going to get. With Sony we are totally at the mercy of the publishers and they're not selling it to me.

The problem lies in the fact that they have not learned from last generation. Their product is not the product of pedigree. I do not even know where they got the idea from. Just because they did well when all the other consoles were running through a bad spot, that does not make them good. That means they were better than the poorer selling or in the Dreamcast's case, poorly timed consoles. No Sony, you are not restaurant food to Nintendo and Microsoft's trashy fast food. You're in the same boat. but you cost more.

Add on top the fact they do not plan any backwards compatibility at all with the PS3, you are looking at a harsh transition for developers and consumers. Sure you will be able to stream PS3 games through the cloud, but we know that won't be free. To be honest, Bob Chipman, The Game Overthinker, Moviebob says it better than I ever could. So if you have time, give it a watch. I'll leave a link at the bottom of the page.

Believe it or not...I want Sony to do well...Even if it's only because I know it's the most likely way the type of games I love will see it into the next generation. So I hope Sony sort it out. Cut the price of the Vita, hopefully they made the hardware friendly this time and pray that they open the gate with some solid publishers backing them.

Overbytes