PlayStation 4: A nod to the past, a glimpse of a more open future

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...te-610x343.jpgThe week’s headline news was actually a little predictable. As we revealed a few weeks ago, PS4′s new controller has a Vita-style touchpad on the front and comes with a ‘share’ button, a nod to the console’s more social outlook. PS4 will also be PC-like and easier to develop for, and arrive ‘holiday 2013’, though question marks remain over whether that includes Europe.Consumer-centric and developer-inspired were the early beats at PlayStation Meeting, and beyond any mere game announcement, the most striking part of Sony’s presentation was the shift in tone.Hyperbole was mixed with humility – with PS4, Sony wanted to show that it was listening. This week served as an unspoken apology for PS3’s troubled launch and a tacit acknowledgement that the game industry simply won’t wait around for Sony much longer, and neither will consumers.Mobile and tablets will be part of the PlayStation experience, Sony said. And its own second screen, Vita, was part of that. We noted some months ago that what the struggling Vita needed most was PS4, and clearly Sony thinks so too. Here it was pitched as a companion device to PS4, with David Perry demoing Remote Play live to the audience.If it was indeed live. In the flurry of interviews that followed PlayStation Meeting, SCEA head Jack Tretton made some interesting comments about how Gaikai, streaming and the cloud fit into the PS4 vision. What we saw was ‘aspirational’, rather than part of PS4’s day one offering. It’s a choice of words which might remind some of the infamous ‘target footage’ masquerading as realtime play we saw before PS3 arrived.It was this part of the pitch which seemed most elusive. Appropriately for all David Perry’s talk of the cloud, we didn’t come away with anything tangible during his segment. Every suggestion of instant-play demos and back-catalogue downloads was qualified by rather woollier language. It was fifteen minutes of what Sony would like to do with Gaikai’s technology, rather than what it will do for launch day.

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