Launching PS4: one year behind the scenes at PlayStation UK, from reveal to release

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...-610x3441.jpegOne year ago today at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting in New York, the platform holder went public with its plans to release PS4 in time for holiday 2013. We saw the new DualShock 4 pad, next-gen games and a vision: Sony pitched the new hardware as the videogame console built by game developers and laser-targeted at players. And as part of that February showcase, Sony explained that planning for the new console began to formulate at a very high level within Sony’s Japan HQ just after PS3’s troubled launch.Only a small group of Sony execs were in on that plan right up until late 2012, when PlayStation UK’s managing director Fergal Gara became part of discussions around the new console. “The target was clearly to get out last year prior to Christmas, and that of course got communicated to the world in February,” he tells us. “It was still a little broad in February, in that the territories and pricepoint weren’t defined, but what’s really pleasing is that we managed to communicate our goals effectively.”At PlayStation Meeting, Sony showed that it had been listening, careful to get developers onside with an approachable, accessible console while pleasing players with a tight focus on games. Though some complained of not seeing the console itself, very few inside Sony had seen a PS4 by that point; understandably, it was considered a risk to go too public too early with other details, too. “So things like price, for example, there are a lot of variables that go into that,” continues Gara. “If you announce the price ten months ahead of your launch there could be some moving parts that make that uncomfortable when it comes to launch – it was better to do that at E3.”Press and player reaction afterwards was mostly positive, and tinged with a more than a little relief, as E3 2012 had left a vaguely unpleasant taste in the mouth. Rumours around Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles had reached a crescendo in the media, too – confirmation that 2013 would be the year we’d see a new PlayStation and Xbox was long overdue by that point.

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