Shut up and take my money! Sony unveils PS4
Did anyone watch tonight’s PS4 announcement? Color me impressed! (well, with the specs and games)
However, talk about mixed reactions about Sony unveiling of their new PS4. Personally, I’m a Sony fanbot when it comes to consoles and you can count on me getting one however reactions all around are pretty evenly mixed so far.
I’ve tried to summarize the highlights of tonight’s 2 hour conference below for your reading pleasure.
The Good
- x86 processor with an enhanced PC GPU
- 8GB of RAM
- “massive” local storage
- Major focus on social integration through Facebook and ustream for live game streaming with the ability to invite friends to interact with you while you’re playing
- Ability to connect even when you are away from the console using their Remote feature
- Upgraded background processing (reduced download times).
- Ability to stream play PS1, PS2, PS3 games from the “cloud”
- Enhanced DualShock4 controller with tighter responses (less lag) and better ergonic ergonomic design
- Touchscreen added to controller
- Enhanced motion sensor on controller
- Wide developer support with over 500 games scheduled to be available around launch time.
A console could only be as good as the games so we were happy to hear them announce some new games (and trailers) such as Killzone: Shadow Fall, inFamous: Second Son and Diablo 3! (PC gamers are REALLY going to hate us now!)
Now the only thing is that although they announced these great features and games, none of them are real game-changers like the PS3 with its BluRay when it launched or the Wii with its never-before-seen revolutionary motion controllers or even Xbox with its controller-less Kinect.
The Bad
- Console itself wasn’t shown, but at least we got the specs and saw the controller. Not that big of a deal
- No backwards compatibility. This really sucks for those of us that have a PS3 collection. I don’t understand why you can stream older gen games but you can’t play the discs?
- No announcement on whether Sony will improve the PlayStation Network to bring it up to Xbox’s
- Price and specific date were not announced
Aside from a big of vagueness and the lack of backwards compatibility, overall I’m pretty confident this will be a solid gaming machine, one that I’m looking forward to. Hopefully it’ll have better success than the poor Wii-U which also showed promise but is now lacking in sales.
PS4 will be available in time for the Holidays. Will you be getting one?
“I don’t understand why you can stream older gen games but you can’t play the discs?”
Hmm it could be that the PS4 itself isn’t actually playing the game, just streaming the video, from what I understood. Kind of like OnLive. And you’re remote-playing it. That would make sense since the hardware is totally different and I’m sure the Cell processor isn’t easy to emulate. Remember the PS3’s PS2 emulation had actual PS2 hardware to make it happen.
They could always send out a software update with an emulator (hoping for this, but it’s unlikely to be powerful enough to fully emulate a PS3 at acceptable speeds).
If it’s not backwards compatible then fuck them, I’m sick of this re-buy your collection bullshit!
That makes sense, I didn’t actually think of it that way (brain was fried when I wrote this!)
But you don’t need to re-buy it. Just keep your PS3 lol. That’s what I’m doing if I even get a PS4.
In order to be backwards compatible with the PS3, I’d imagine they’d have to stick some PS3 hardware in there just like they did with the PS3’s PS2 emulation. That would raise the cost of production (even though it’s old hardware) and I’m sure they don’t want to sell it at the PS3’s launch price again.
If they keep too much backwards compatibility it’s just going to hold them back. Letting go of legacy is the best way to move forward. And your PS3 still works.
True enough heronymo. aaand you know I’ll cave hahaha. I’m just tired of the cables! Oh so many cables!!!! AAAAaaaah!!!