PS4 Reveal an Unbridled Success

Sony made a brave and bold move with their PS4 reveal yesterday, and as predicted, it set the gaming community and internet ablaze with both praise and scorn in equal measure. They gave specs without detail, showed promise of unbelievable social and cloud gaming features, had games galore and revealed a controller without a console. Despite the doubters, despite the people calling it 'a wedding without a bride' or claiming it was a reveal without a reveal, it's all paid off because we're all talking about it, and all still speculating.

Sony's press conference yesterday was expertly crafted media management. They gave enough without giving too much. They let us know what they are going to do with PS4 without showing us how. They gave us a taste of what to expect come the closing months of 2013, but they held back the lion's share of details to keep us all talking, all year, until its finally released and hype is at a fever pitch.

Expect even more at E3, but don't expect it all. Sony didn't want to show the console yesterday, we know that much, to have something to show later. Many are failing to see the strategy in this. Many are failing to take into account a full blown, spec sheet, console and capability reveal leaves it open to their competition to change their message, or even their hardware (albeit an unlikely scenario).

Sony confirmed PS4, confirmed it's going to be awesome, and confirmed its going to have the support of the best big name and indie developers in the industry, with some killer features and killer games that'll make it a must have. They did all this without even showing a console, and without giving those details we crave.

Negative or positive, there's one thing we're all talking about, and will continue to talk about at least until Microsoft reveal the next Xbox, and that's PS4. Even when Xbox does get revealed, there'll be two things to talk about, not one. The conversation will be which console has better specs, better features, better games. But right now, Sony has all the media it can handle with PS4. The conversation is theirs, and Microsoft can only watch or reveal.

Sony's press conference was a winner.

[NeverEnding1989]

I disagree. With little substance to show, SONY clearly displayed that this conference was poorly prepared. The PS4 conference had no PS4. I think we'll remember this for generations to come TBH.

I'm afraid the lack of details have caused what SONY exactly didn't want to happen: hype for Microsoft's next console. Things are already dying down for the PS4 and the hype train for the next xbox has begun and Microsoft has yet to even confirm its existence.

Here's hoping they're already planning for E3 so we can get a better, well rounded presentation.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

The only people that I'm seeing that aren't hyped/weren't impress with Sony's showing are people that never liked Sony to begin with.

The main reason I'm seeing as to why those that didn't like the event were upset is because they didn't show the actual hardware which leaves me scratching my head bit. Had the console been shown would that have changed your impression of the event? I highly doubt it.

People are looking for any excuse (oddly enough it's those that never liked Sony to begin with) they can find to try to down play Sony's event even though they didn't reveal everything and yet it was still impressive.

It seems like Sony's main goal with this event was squash all the criticism the PS3 had and show that it won't be present on the PS4. And the mission was accomplished. Only thing they didn't do was have traditional physical backwards compatibility which was to be expected since they did a 180 with the architecture.

[Nicaragua]

What is this "lack of details" you speak of ?

I saw plenty of details, system specs, community features, hardware features such as the new Dualshock... and despite all that you are whining that you didnt see the shape of the plastic box that its going to sit in ? Get a grip.

[2pacalypsenow]

"The PS4 conference had no PS4."

Thats all they showed ! Specs are the Ps4! no matter what it looks like its still the ps4 sony had a presentation like this back in 2005 and didnt show the actual console until e3 2006

[redfirm]

NeverEnding1989, You had 1 bubble...1 BUBBLE!! and you used it to write that ? what a waist

All your comments show 1 thing, you act like you like playstation while constantly bashing it and praising the xbox...sad

[grayfoxx881]

I think you forgot to take your pills this morning.

[Hufandpuf]

TBH I'm waiting to see what MS has before I make up my mind on the PS4. A LOT of you are kinda jumping the gun with Sony's conference when the revealed games weren't even all that great IMO.

What WOULD have impressed me is a demonstration of a high spec PC port being played on the PS4 (Which wasn't even shown so how do we even know that it was played on one)

All we saw were game TRAILERS except for KZ:SF that for all we know could've been running on PCs that are similar in spec to the final PS4.

Sony even said it themselves that they didn't know what the final version of the PS4 would look like.

[FamilyGuy]

Both Killzone and Knack were shown running, they weren't trailers. I also doubt they'd have them up and running on a PC rather than PS4 hardware as any discrepancies would be noted as soon as the final versions of these games came out not looking like these demos. (ala that new Aliens game)

These games were basically running on dev kits, we'll see the hardware once it's ready. Seeing a box doesn't validate anything btw, a pc could be tailor-fitted to reside inside a box and have that box be called a PS4.

The PS4s hardware exterior, shown or not shown, doesnt matter.

I'm glad they had this even because now they'll have time to show off all sort of other things during E3. This took two hours, that's longer than they even get at E3.

[Hufandpuf]

I didn't say KZ was a trailer, and from past experiences they do run games from PC-like setups similar to the certain console specs. I'm not saying what they show is not what it is going to be (because honestly after 3-4 years after the current gen started, we should've been at this point) but just be wary that because we didn't see the actual hardware there is always this level of caution that must be speculated before taking a leap of faith.

Too me, E3 is going to be the deciding factor.

[FamilyGuy]

I meant to say, "It wasn't just Killzone that was demoed".

"Too me, E3 is going to be the deciding factor."

I'm pretty much set but E3 will definitely solidify my decision. Sony made a lot statements saying things like: "we plan to.." "we want to...", "we intend to.." so I'm interested in what solid features they'll have and they should be more certain about them come E3.