Natural born psychics
While most of our PS4 hopes and fears went unaddressed at Sony’s big NYC coming out party, the company did answer some of our concerns — though, not all of them are the answers we were hoping for.
Let’s take a look back at our predictions from yesterday morning and see how they stacked up with Sony’s show.
“Sony is too confident and relies on gimmicky online features (minimal cloud support), only to be blown out of the water by Microsoft with the 720. Also, I fear a lack of backwards compatibility.”
While gimmicky online features is a value judgement that will vary from one individual to the next, it does seem that Sony are heavily investing in cloud support with streaming games, saves, and shared video. A lack of backwards compatibility, with both discs and digital purchases has been confirmed, and what a bummer it is.
“Graphics over gameplay”
Sony’s PS4 reveal emphasized a new bar for graphics instead of offering any glimpse at gameplay we haven’t experienced before, with the exception of The Witness (a known entity). Some novel concepts were suggested with the new hardware but none were shown. Sure, I love the idea of a game that lets others come in and direct the action surrounding me, but I can’t invest in that idea until I see it manifested, even if it were only a tech demo. Here’s hoping we see something a bit more original at E3.
“That I may not even have a good reason to continue bothering with consoles except for the reason that Japanese developers don’t do a lot of cross-platform to the PC”
With Capcom stealing the show, graphically-speaking, and SquareEnix announcing an announcement for a new PS4 Final Fantasy, it seems Japanese-loving gamers will still have much to look forward to out of Sony.
“A focus on controller gimmickry. (Sixaxis, Move, etc.)”
Sony were surprisingly tight-lipped about the new controller, refusing to answer questions with press and barely discussing the new features at the show. The DualShock 4 looks mighty nice, though I personally don’t like the share button — a major focus for the new system, according to Sony. The touch screen seems so unobtrusive, which should help prevent developers from adding on tacky, intrusive touch elements in games (see: Uncharted on the Vita).
“My owned content will not transfer over.”
“Party chat, streaming and digital distribution day 1 with retail.”
Yes, yes, and maybe(?)
“Is Square-Enix going to wait until bankruptcy to remaster Final Fantasy 7 on current hardware? I’d like to see that happen before the great earthquake swallows California.”
Considering they can’t even show a single screenshot of Final Fantasy XIII Versus, don’t hold your breath.
“Expansion of cross-platform usefulness with Vita (sure as hell the Vita would benefit from it)”
At the conference, PS4 title Knack was played on a tethered Vita. Seeing next-gen graphics on that small OLED screen is really something and gives Sony a Wii U tablet equivalent.
“Something to make the Xross Media Bar cool again”
Sony showed a great deal of its new system menu and it looks pretty nice, if a bit too Xbox-ey.
