With February 20th now behind us, gamers are able to see the future with a little more clarity. Sony has mostly revealed its latest console, telling us that it will be releasing during the holiday season of this year.
Let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?
Sony's presentation was good, but it wasn't great. We knew that the PS4 (by one name or another) was coming, and we knew that it was going to be graphically superior to the Wii U.
From an objective point of view, I want Sony to do as well as it can. They have decent first party exclusives, in the form of Infamous, God of War, Little Big Planet and whatever Naughty Dog is working on. Their multiplatform offerings are slightly less important, as we know that the Xbox 720 and PC will likely run them as well, if not better. Therefore, it's crucial that the games be as good as they can.
What we saw at the presentation was very little in the form of actual footage. Sure, there were plenty of prerendered cutscenes, but very little actually showed what the system was truly capable of.
Instead, it seemed that the focus of this event was on marketing. There were somewhat huge reveals, including Capcom's Deep Down, Blizzard's support on PS3 and PS4, and of course, Bungie releasing Destiny on Sony's console as well as the tried and true Xbox.
The problem is, most of these reveals are little more than an olive branch to gamers. We received little beyond fluid graphics and a dose of physics. Even when we saw an engine in action, it didn't seem as though it was pushing the system to its limit.
The presentation was marred by missteps like that. Square Enix didn't show anything new. Their demonstration was the same one that they showed us at E3 8 months ago - even though they did promise to show a new Final Fantasy on Sony's machine this June. When it was revealed that Watchdogs would be on the PS4, half an hour later, it was also specified that the Wii U would be getting the game as well.
There were some nice touches that the PS4 had, which helped to salvage an otherwise boring event. The game Knack looks like it could be clever and well-done, and really be a good way of utilizing most of the PS4 hardware. It also has some cool social functions, but it seems that might be using a decent chunk of the PS4's massive 8gb of RAM. They'll also have their own form of remote play that will let you play your PS4 games on your Vita.
Of course, with all these features and high specs, I feel like there's no way the thing is going to be affordable. I would surmise we're going to see a $499 price tag at minimum, but EB games Australia has already posted it as A$899 for preorder. It's a given that it would be a placeholder, but that's one holy hell of a high price. Australia's currency is not that different from the U.S. dollar. The Wii U was only about $70 more down under. EB Games Australia is assuming that Sony will be releasing its newest console at what I would assume is the equivalent of $600-$700. And that could totally happen.
Also, while Sony will not be cutting used games from their list, they are going to be cutting backward compatibility, which is going to severely hamper their launch window. They also are not going to be cutting the price of the Vita in the states, which is a huge kick in the pants now that we've seen the one Japan has received.
In any case, while the Playstation 4's announcement was phenomenally insightful, it leaves me in the same position I was once the Playstation 3 was released. Unless I suddenly fall into a large pile of cash, I'll have to be content to ride the waves just on the perimeter of this release. Then, when one or two price drops help to deflate its likely high price, and a few must-have games land on my radar, I'll have enough incentive to purchase.
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