If you’re not a gamer, or if you’re some sort of reclusive hobbit gamer that lives in an abandoned missile silo, the news of today’s Playstation press conference may have passed you by. For the rest of us, this was the first shell fired into the newest generation of warring consoles, where Sony spent the better part of two hours announcing their plans for the upcoming Playstation 4.
Anyone who listens to the After The Fact podcast knows that I’m a humongous Playstation fan. I grew up a console gamer and cut my teeth on Nintendo’s classic systems. I was just the right age – a senior in high-school – when the Playstation came out, and it was the first console I ever bought with my own money. I was a mild Playstation fan through the life of the PSOne, mostly because I was wholly disappointed by Nintendo’s offering at the time. When the PS2 came out, though, I was completely hooked, and have been ever since.
Today’s PS4 announcement had a hell of a lot of good in it. It seems, for the most part, that Sony has learned from many of their mistakes during the PS3 generation, and is focused on providing a wholly reinvented online and social experience, combined with a system that is focused on getting you gaming as fast as possible and as soon as you want it.
My only real disappointments with today’s conference came in the form of the games that were showcased. A few really caught my eye like inFamous: Second Son and Knack, but the rest kind of fell flat for me. Killzone looked beautiful but it’s a series that’s never found it’s way into my heart. I’m glad to see that Watch Dogs is a PS4 offering rather than PS3, but the gameplay demo they showed actually didn’t feel as dynamic as the one Ubisoft showed us at E3. The Destiny announcement was a given – especially after their conference in Seattle just a couple of days ago – and the Diablo III announcement left me scratching my head.
The two biggest standouts in my mind, though, are the PSVita connectivity – remote play that might, for once, actually work? – and the controller. The DualShock 4 is the first departure from the standard DualShock design since its introduction in the mid-’90’s, and it looks nigh on perfect to me. A more ergonomic shape, added features, and just slightly re-designed everything means a DualShock that seems like it’s just better.
I’m still processing everything I saw today, and I’ll have more detailed thoughts in the coming week.
