Sony's PS4 Event Was an Epic Letdown | Hacker News Reader

Sony's PS4 Event Was an Epic Letdown

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11 pointsSparksZilla10 comments

why is it so important to see the device?

you only touch and play with the controller, the device is just a box

we clearly know what the PS4 is about

1- the hardware is PC-ish 2- the system will be dev friendly 3- the vita will be used to cover some of the use cases of the wii u, maybe more in the future 4- lots of focus switched to social aspect of gaming, like sharing and streaming

I do agree with few points 1- the graphics are not all that impressive 2- they really didnt show off the new controller potential

but still we now clearly know what PS4 is about

The design of the device can play a role in how people perceive the console, primarily due to aesthetics and practical issues of os placing the system in a room. Console case design balances the line between artistic design (the Xbox 360s curvature, the Wii's shiny, compact casing) and how the system will be stacked (horizontal? vertical? Will discs be readable regardless of how the system is placed?)

Is this the biggest issue a console launch faces? No. But it's something a console owner would like the manufacturer to consider and could affect sales.

Since they will be shipping just before the Christmas sales period, at the earliest... They have a whole 6 months or more to reveal further details and keep interest high.

This Sony "meeting" was a vast improvement over the PS Vita launch which was all about specs, and not games, and that's not what sells game consoles and why the Vita is all but dead as game dev platform.

Putting Jonathon Blow on stage, who is a big critic of Microsoft's support of indie gamers was also great promotion of Sony as the gaming world heads to GDC.

For non-apple standards, this was a great event.

Agreed. It seems to have a lot of great features. Hopefully the HD is still user replaceable.

I love how gaming journalism still completely ignores Nintendo. I mean, I have lost interest in Nintendo as a consumer, but when looking at the business, how can one ignore the company who made the system that's beating both Sony's and Microsoft's current systems?

Possibly because Nintendo has already launched their new console to little fanfare and are burning cash.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/ouch-report-says-ni...

I will agree that the Wii U is selling rather abysmally, and that is perhaps a good reason to ignore Nintendo entirely. But, really, even when they had the Wii sold out for years, Nintendo was still basically ignored by the press. It was always a fight between Microsoft and Sony ever since the Xbox.

I am quite curious to see how well any of the new consoles do. People have been predicting the end of consoles since the NES, I am beginning to wonder if they're finally right.

Also, that article is pretty old. Before even the Vita came out (and subsequently bombed).

I think the console killers will be cheap multifunction tv connected devices. Things like:

* the Ouya

* SteamBox

* maybe at some point possibly an appletv that supports 3rd party apps (games)

This does kind of feel like the last gen (gasp?) of dedicate consoles.

check vgchartz, nintendo may have sold more consoles with the wii, but PS3 and xbox continued to sell more games

i dont know how come nintendo did not consider this, i guess they really believed that the wii u is as original as the wii when it came out

i dont think consoles are dead, by a long stretch ... sony and ms will continue to compete for years to come and hopefully nintendo if they recover from the wii u

Largely delayed response, but according to vgchartz you're actually wrong:

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Gl...

Wii has Xbox 360 and PS3 beat. If you want to argue third-party sales, you are correct, which just goes to show how well Nintendo sells its own games. However, a significant portion of the third-party software lead that the PS3 and Xbox 360 have goes away if you ignore Call of Duty, which also just points out how massive Call of Duty is.

This data actually surprises me further, because ask anyone who even knows what a third-party is and they would say Microsoft and Sony have much better third-party support. However, sales-wise the difference isn't nearly as significant; considering cheaper cost of development it would also seem irrelevant. It seems to me that third-parties simply didn't/don't want to develop games for the Wii.

Now with the Wii U doing poorly, I don't see the trend shifting to more third-party support for Nintendo. This can only hurt them.

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