My Reaction to the Playstation 4 Announcement

I must say that overall I'm feeling rather positive about what Sony had to say during the Playstation 4 announcement two days ago.  Their constant refrain -- that they are about games and gamers -- was really the message that I was hoping to hear.  I'm glad that gaming consoles now offer such non-gaming services as Netflix and Hulu and that they support Dolby 5.1 and whatnot, but for me the most important things that a new console can offer are 1) access to a wide variety of compelling games and 2) a user interface that is easy and (dare I say it?) FUN to use.  I believe that Sony is set to deliver on those two points, and as such I have enjoyed reading about what they have in store for Playstation 4.

The Name

So they stuck with the numbers and called it Playstation 4.  That's cool.  There were rumors that it might be known by its codename "Orbis", or simply "Playstation", but they stuck with the numbers and that's fine with me.  What's in a name anyway?

The Controller

I'm glad that Sony decided to mostly stick with the form factor they've been using since the days of the PS1. I have always liked the feel of the Dual Shock controller design and this latest iteration doesn't appear to stray too far from that formula.  The biggest change is the removal of the SELECT and START buttons, replaced by a touchpad.  Now, I'm intrigued by the touchpad and its possibilities for use in navigating menus and controlling games, but I'm ultimately wondering just how useful it will be.  Apparently it supports pinch-to-zoom and multi-touch, and that's great, but I have my doubts about its overall utility and whether or not it will be accepted and used by 3rd party developers.

Also new to the design are the SHARE and OPTIONS buttons.  According to Sony, the SHARE button is there to provide players with an easy way to upload and share gameplay videos.  Players will have the ability to pause a game, hit the share button, quickly create a video, and make it available for others to view.  This is brilliant!  I can't tell you how many times I've wished I could do this very thing over the years.  I love the idea of having a video log of my greatest gaming achievements, and this feature seems poised to deliver that very experience.  The controller also has a small mono speaker, and auxiliary input jack, and a funky "light bar" on the top.  Oh and concave analog sticks.  People are into that, right?

The Eye

As of this writing I still don't know too much about the Eye peripheral.  It seems like a Playstation version of the Xbox Kinect.  I get it now... last generation they copied the Wii with the Move controller, and now they're aping Microsoft with this thing!  No really, I'm good with this.  I've never actually messed around with a Kinect, but I hear they're cool and that there's great potential for the technology.  Apparently, every PS4 will ship with one of these, so I expect that we will know a lot more about what Sony plans to do with it soon.

The Games

Several games have already been confirmed for Sony's new system, none of which get me very excited.  A new Killzone, a new Infamous, Diablo 3, Final Fantasy 58...you know, whatever.  Thing is, I'm not too worried about there being quality games to play at launch.  Between retail games and downloadable titles I'm sure there we be plenty of stuff to play.  Some people worried that Sony would make a move to have Playstation 4 block used games, but that does not seem to be the case.

It has been confirmed that PS4 will not be backwards compatible with discs for any of the previous Playstation consoles and it will apparently not allow you to transfer any of the games currently downloaded to your Playstation 3.  Hrm.  Some say that this helps them keep costs down and allows them to pass the savings on to the customer, but I don't totally buy that.  I think they just want us to keep paying for shit.  I get it.  New console, new infrastructure...blah blah blah...  I mean, if they follow through on their promise to stream older games and they offer a good amount of titles at reasonable prices then I'm mostly okay with this move.  Maybe make streaming an unlimited part of Playstation Plus?  That would be nice, guys!

The Box

Well...no box.  That's cool.  Sony doesn't want to show everything all at once, and I can dig it.  E3 is coming up.  They need to have a few things left to reveal.  I'd like to see something more sleek and less chunky if that's possible.  Thanks!

The User Interface

Not much of the user interface side of the OS was shown at the press conference.  From what I could see, the new OS looks a lot like how the Playstation Store currently looks.  That is to say serviceable but not great.  Cool blue tones and big chunky tiles arranged in a grid pattern.  Can't say much until we get our hands on it but I'd like to see them do something to make the UI more customizable.  I'm not talking about wallpapers or avatars either.  Let us rearrange things and set them up to our liking.  Give us some options so that we might have more control over our experience with your new console!

Some of the social stuff (like the player profile pictured above) looks like a much needed expansion of the minimalistic Playstation Network IDs we currently have on PS3.  Honestly, I like the idea of adding social functions to gaming, I just don't want to be broadcasting my gaming achievements to my Facebook or Twitter pages.  Fleshing out the online experience with a dedicated Playstation social network could be cool. and I'm looking forward to learning more about this.

So there you have it!  I'm upbeat about what was shown and I'm looking forward to having Sony lead me around like a puppy as they continue to dole out information about the PS4 in the coming months.  As of now I'm not quite ready to place a pre-order, but with this announcement I'm starting to feel optimistic about the next generation of console gaming.