PS4: PlayStation is back with a bang

21 Feb, 2013

So there we have it, PlayStation 4 is real. It's certainly been a long time coming, but in my humble opinion it's been worth the wait. Sony answered its critics in New York last night and anyone who says otherwise couldn't have been paying attention.

What Sony had to do was prove that PlayStation had a future in amongst the world of smartphones and tablets. It did this by embracing them. Sony also take note of the way gaming is changing, with people sharing content and connecting every time they play. It did this too.

Sure there was the usual disposal of information in a way which can send the audience to sleep. But this was an important message not just for those journalists in the audience, but for the many developers, most of whom would have been very interested in this part of the show.

Once Sony got into its stride though and started to show what really counts - the console's features and its games, it was here that we really started to see the potential for the future. Perhaps the most important aspect of Sony's announcement last night was the Share button which took its place on the newly shown Dualshock 4. Using this button, Sony's plans for connectivity, cross platform play and social media all come to the fore. You can stream your gameplay live on UStream, allowing your friends to watch. They can even join in your game if you get stuck and help you out e.g by offering health potion or weapons. Facebook will also play a part in the new PlayStation and although Twitter wasn't mentioned it's hard to see it being excluded.

The share button alone was an impressive aspect of the new console, but it wasn't the only one. When Gaikai's Dave Perry took to the stage Sony's plans for the company all of a sudden became clear. Using your PS4 you'll be able to stream demos of PS4 games, no more waiting for downloads. That's not all though as you'll also be able to play PS4 games on your PS Vita. What's not to love about that? In the future, Perry says that Sony is hoping to provide PS1, PS2 and PS3 games via the PlayStation Cloud. This could see you playing these games on not only PS4, but your Vita, Mobile's and possibly even PC.

As we all know, downloading anything on PS3 is a chore, however PS4 will change all of this. Background downloading has been introduced, allowing you to download while performing another task. Games can also be downloaded in stand-by mode and if you download a digital game then you'll be able to play it whilst it is downloading.

There are also other under appreciated features that were mentioned, such as the ability to press the power button to freeze your game, with another press allowing you to start again from where you left off. You'll also be treated to instant booting of the console, while you'll also be able to boot features such as the web browser whilst playing a game. Cross-game play and Cross-game chat will also be included as a feature, something many have been crying out for on the PS3.

Then there was the games. Killzone looked spectacular and was not pre-rendered this time, instead it was being played live, Guerrilla Games confirmed as much to me via twitter. Infamous: Second Son also looked pretty spectacular, as did Evolution's DriveClub. Another exclusive known as Krank was also shown, a next generation platformer, which while not spectacular looking proved that Sony is planning to span many genres. We also saw third party titles such as Watch Dogs, a stunning new Capcom title known as Deep Down and the promise of Diablo III for both PS3 and PS4. There will be more first party exclusives of course, but Sony is no doubt saving these for E3 in order to give its developers more time to harness the power of the new PlayStation 4.

It wasn't just 'AAA' titles in the limelight though, Sony continued its wonderful support of indie developers allowing Braid creator Jonathan Blow to show off his lovely new title which will be exclusive to PS4 in the launch window. Sony also backed the indie support up by saying that developers will essentially be able to 'self publish' games on the store, although we need more details on this before we can comment on its potential.

The PlayStation 4 has been in development for a whopping five years. That's a long time in an ever changing world of technology. What Sony had to show was that it could adapt to the ever changing world of gaming over this time and last night it did just that. There are a lot of challenging times to come for Sony and all of its consoles. But it seems that at last the company is moving in the right direction.

Edited On 21 Feb, 2013

Joe is the Editor in Chief at Shopto news, he loves gaming and regularly writes news when sitting on the train to events even though he has a 3DS in his pocket.

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“ Sounds good, developers hopefully have what they want by the way Sony seem to have gone about creating it. Should be easier to develop for than ps3. I wonder what Microsoft have up their sleeve that's gonna blow us away? ”

screally 3 months ago

“ I personally liked what I see from Sony ( enough to order my PS4 this morning with Shopto lol ) sure they was a lot of what I call "dull" talk but that's mainly due to not understand all the tech talk. Some stunning looking games and what I really like (if true ) is I'm now reading the PS4 will be able to play used games and won't require an always on connection so now it's over to Microsoft, I hope they have a good unveiling, the only trouble with that is convincing the wife that I'll need to buy both consoles ;) ”

Old Timer 3 months ago

“ next gen xbox for me! unless microsoft screw it up which i doubt they will now they know what sony are doing! ”

Shep 3 months ago

“ Knowing what Sony is doing isn't enough. They will have had their console in just as long as the PS4 has been in, and will have what they want to do with it. They'll just try to match Sony/Nintendo and hope people stay loyal. ”

DynamiteWhyte 3 months ago

“ I'm not over impressed with the selection of games so far, but I'm definitely interested, I'll pick one up at some point, when there are more games that interest me. Just have to see what MS have up their sleeves now to see how expensive this next generation is going to be for me. ”

Gloria 3 months ago

“ will we be waiting for E3 to find out about xbox cause that is ages away :( ”

Shep 3 months ago

“ I'm planning on hitting New York next year, and weighed up how much a cheap Wii U(The Zavvi sale one atm), a PS4 and an XBOX would cost. Would have to sacrifice New York for Butlins... ”

DynamiteWhyte 3 months ago

“ I thought MS were doing something next month kiki, I'm sure I read it somewhere, and I can't see them waiting too long now Sony have shown their hand.

Butlins ain't so bad DW, you might even win a knobbly knees competition ;) ”

Gloria 3 months ago

“ I'll just hope they still have the pirate show ;) I think they are showing it next month. Or atleast it was rumoured to be in March. But they do have a countdown to E3 on show, but I can't see them waiting till then to announce it now. ”

DynamiteWhyte 3 months ago

“ any one else had goose pimples when that show started last night , it blew me away the quality of games shown , had to get my pre order in this morning , i think micro soft need to pull something out the bag to beat this ”

KRATOS 20 3 months ago

“ The show was all kinds of awesome. It's going to be a struggle not to pick one up on day 1. New Killzone and Infamous pretty much seal the deal for me though. 2 of my favourite franchises with , hopefully, launch window releases! ”

troublemaker 3 months ago

“ it still has not sunk in yet how good these games look when playing , but i think it might take our minds off the ps3 though , seeing the games to come but it still has some great games coming yet though ”

KRATOS 20 3 months ago

“ It didn't impress me that much, I've been seeing far better than that for months on my PC... ”

Johnathon 3 months ago

“ Graphics are never the most important factor for me (my most bought games this gen are XBLA type games and old PC games from gog.com anyway), it's always the gameplay and innovation for me. Quick question about Gaikai for demos - does that mean demos are streaming only, they can't be downloaded? Not really bothered either way, just interested to know. ”

shiny miller 3 months ago

“ no there not they never get the numbers of a AAA game. ”

Skiba 3 months ago

“ ^ crackpot ”

AMIE 3 months ago

“ Is 'crackpot' aimed at me? ”

shiny miller 3 months ago

“ Show was brilliant loved the games the way they have stuff saved for E3 is genius. preordered last night want one bad:) 8GB GDDR5 wow. ”

Skiba 3 months ago

“ Always knew the visuals were going to be exceptional, but even so that Killzone gameplay was still amazing looking, and that's a launch title! However, it was the features that sold me. The video sharing and suspension features are very interesting to me. Only real disappointments of the night were no PS3 BC (Expected sadly) and them deciding to DOUBLE the RAM of the machine. Seriously, 4GBs of GDDR5 RAM would have been more than enough for this level of console, 8GBs is nothing less than total overkill. It'll give the machine a huge capability advantage over the new Xbox (Assuming those specs are correct of course), but is a bullet point like that really worth the fifty odd quid this could potentially add to the hardware cost? I think not. All told though, this was probably the best way to announce the console: Brief tease/outline of features, spec breakdown and strong first party launch titles previewed in addition to show of strong third party support. Instills a lot more confidence than just announcing your machine using a sizzle reel of games running on other consoles and that's for sure. ”

PrometheusFan 3 months ago

“ They've protected it for years to come and the developers wanted that amount of RAM as far as I'm aware. It's good that they are listening to developers, as it will be them that they'll need to work with to get the best out of the console really. Agreed with your last point, no point showing off a console based on PC specs. ”

DynamiteWhyte 3 months ago

“ sounds good i would say sony are back with a bang now the key price point they need to be so careful about the price (: it could make or brake the ps4 u remember the ps3 price wow ”

knockton 3 months ago

“ I wasn't completely impressed by this. Now, to be fair, I might have enjoyed it more if I didn't have a banging headache at the time. So sitting through what was mostly 2 hours of rambling didn't help. The games look gorgeous and I like some of the new features they announced but...I don't know. I expected more from Sony. I know they are probably saving things for E3 but I thought at the very least we would get a little teaser of what the console actually looks like. All of the best games shown will be multiplatform so that isn't really convincing me that I absolutely have to own a PS4. I doubt I will feel that way (like I must own a PS4) until they announce a PS4 Yakuza game but that is more of my personal gaming taste (I love Fable and Halo, don't like Killzone or realistic driving games) and less to do with the Sony presentation as a whole. However the biggest drawback for me is no backwards compatibility. I won't make a decision on which console to buy first until after Microsofts event. At this point, all Microsoft need to do to make me buy their console day 1 is to say 'you can use the same gamertag with achievement score carrying over, all downloaded content will be compatible and all 360 disc games will work too'. ”

Cathe 3 months ago

“ So you're going to buy a next gen console based on the fact that you can do everything on it that you can do on your 360? ”

DynamiteWhyte 3 months ago

“ I think that song have come along way with there developments and some of them look awesome yet some are way behind the thinking of Microsoft and I get the feeling that if Sony have thought about majority of these features then you can bet your sweet ass that Microsoft will be planning something bigger. The only thing that Microsoft don't have is handheld gaming but would that not make them think to further there developments on the tablet market? ”

Goose 3 months ago

“ Yeah sign me up it all looks great doesent it especially knack??? That reminded me of games like Ape escape and Jak and Daxter which in my opinion have been sort of left behind??Not overly impressed with the other games though Microsoft lets be havin ya???? ”

inspector 74 3 months ago

“ Looking forward to seeing what Microsoft are hiding behind closed doors. Will they do better? or will it be worse I wonder ; ) ”

Kizzy 3 months ago

“ I'm hoping better but it's going to be difficult to top that. ”

LFC Bywater 3 months ago

“ Overall it was an good showing from Sony, the power of the hardware and all it's new features looks impressive. Watchdogs is going to be amazing and seeing actual realtime gameplay on actual PS4 hardware was a tantalising glimpse of next gen in action. Over to you Microsoft! ”

Chazza 3 months ago

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