Sony Press Conference - Marks Thoughts

On the 20^th of February at 23:00 I sat in front of the telly next to Jack eagerly waiting for the Sony press conference to begin. I’m not a sports fan, and I’d much rather spend a couple of hours jabbing a drawing pin into my left testicle than watch a couple of hours of football or tennis, but I as I waited I imagined that this must be how it feels right before an important match…I would have given anything to be there.

Overall I was very impressed with the PS4 unveiling; I think Sony planned the whole thing very well;
I was expecting an hour or so of beating around the bush followed by a 30 second trailer showing the silhouette of the console followed by the words “PS4….Yea, we’re making it”. Thank God that wasn’t the case though; in fact it was the complete opposite. Within the first 10 minutes, the console was announced and within the first 20 minutes Mark Cerny had already spat out the specs for the machine, describing it as a supercharged gaming PC.

When I was in the moment every detail and feature they gave away about the upcoming console was like music to my ears, but looking back I can’t help but feel that some of the features are just a bit gimmicky. For example the option to press the share button and instantly have your friends watch your game live and even jump in if you find yourself stuck sounds to me like Sony where clutching at straws to try and add any social aspect to the machine that they could.

I can see why they would do this, the PS3 failed miserably in terms of online gaming compared to the Xbox 360, but I just cannot see myself or many other people using this feature. Who is honestly going to be watching their friend play a game via the internet, it just isn’t the same as actually being there, even with the controller’s new plug-in head-set feature.

But this is by no means going to put me off the console, even if it has features that I won’t use there’s still no harm in having them. Personally I am most exited at the prospect of being able to play my games anywhere on almost any device, meaning that I’ll be blowing the dust off my Vita in the near future.

It’s going to take a hell of a lot for Microsoft to beat Sony in terms of presentation, a hell of a lot was revealed and most importantly a lot was left out, namely the actual console itself. I really thought it was going to get revealed right at the end but the fact that it didn’t has me on the edge of my seat and I’ll be keeping up to date with all things Sony until it does, as I’m sure a lot of other people will be too.

Overall I really think the PS4 will be enough to save Sony, with the major improvement of the social side of the console, the incredible hardware, the Kinect-like camera, the amazing games and the developer friendliness for large and small companies. I only hope I’ll be able to afford it.

 

Posted by Mark Wilson  24/02/2013