What Sony Did Wrong With The Playstation 4 In 2014

As part of their year end series Skewed and Reviewed have posted what they believe Sony did wrong with the PS4 in 2014.
The article looks at mistakes they company made in the past year.

[miyamoto]

I really dig critiques like these. It keeps PlayStation and PlayStation Nation up on its toes.
I am all for PS4 exclusives like you or the next gamer but having played with PlayStation since the original one many gamers have really underestimated PlayStation’s time tested and secret success weapon- third party games. The reason PlayStation won against Nintendo, Sega and Microsoft since day one is 3rd party games first and 1st party games second.

PlayStation’s 3rd party relations since day one is second to none. PS3 is the comeback king of consoles because of 3rd party support from Valve, EA, Epic etc etc. back in 2010 due to PS3’s tight anti piracy policies ensuring return of investment.

Even when the Xbox 360 was selling well as a multiplatform game beast in USA EA went out to comment that time that "the PS3 is on fire." http://www.techradar.com/ne...

The reason Xbox One price cuts was not enough to deter PS4 dominance is because gamers know 3rd party games look and play better on PS4. Sony made sure they learn from their mistakes with PS3 and its now paying off.

Don’t get me wrong 1st party games show of hardware power also move hardware units like Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War or GT5 but the likes of GTA, CoD, Skyrim or Battlefield move way more PlayStation consoles if we look at statistics.

PS4 has all these bases covered compared to the competing platforms

[radler]

I don't think the PS3 would have bounced back from its disastrous launch if it wasn't for exclusive games like Uncharted 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 and God of War 3 enticing people. The console was getting destroyed until it had a solid first party lineup.

I've no doubt that's why the Xbox One saw 50% more sales than PS4 this month as well, because Microsoft has had to learn the lesson that Sony did when they were on the ropes, and cough up the cash to fund development of good exclusive games.

When two products offer game libraries that are 95% the same, the biggest differentiator is the exclusive games. That's what Nintendo relies on, that's what Sony had to rely on to make the PS3 competitive, and that's what Microsoft are now having to learn as well.

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

To be honest I had never heard of any of the exclusives you mentioned when I finally got a PS3 around 2009. I just got one since I was still gaming on PS2 and ready to upgrade. I have still not played a God of War game except for a demo. What numbers did you read that said XO had 50% more sales than PS4?

[radler]

That's strange, I remember at the time what a huge deal it was since everywhere people were making a huge fuss about PS3 exclusives and how great they were. I recall a friend being impressed with Killzone 2 for example and being eager to try it out on my PS3, and of course everyone went nuts over Uncharted 2 and MGS4 at the time. N4G was filled with constant articles about how exclusives were saving the PS3 and people loved to champion them.

I guess all the disagrees must be people thinking that they were bad and that no-one really cared? Weird.

Oh, and NPD numbers put Xbox One at 1,200,000 and PS4 at 800,000 which is where I got the 50% thing.

[Inception]

"PS3 is the comeback king of consoles because of 3rd party support from Valve, EA, Epic etc etc"

Really? I thought it's because 1st party games like Uncharted 2, God of War 3, KZ 2, Resistance, Motorstorm, Demon's Souls, R&C, inFamous, or LBP that gave PS3 a comeback.

Of course there some 3rd party exclusive like MGS 4, Yakuza, Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea, etc that gave PS3 some boost. But clearly at that time most of 3rd party games like FF XIII, GTA IV, Tekken 6, DMC 4, Soul Calibur IV, Ace Combat 6, RE 5, etc are gone multiplat.

That's also the main reason why Sony strengthen they 1st party studio by buying Media Molecule, Sucker Punch, etc. They knew that most of 3rd party studios can't always support them exclusively. Not when developement cost going sky high.

[kayoss]

I totally agree with Inception. PS3 success was due to its first party games. If you look at the history of the PS3 and it's 3rd party games. The PS3 sold less 3rd party games than the xbox 360 (except for some games like FF games and MGs to name a few). But the xbox360 usually dominated when it comes to multiplatform games sales.

[Aceman18]

What exactly did they do wrong other than the fact that they sold a lot of consoles?

Isn't this the goal of the hardware manufacturers?

Man these so called gaming website really love scraping the bottom of the damn barrel for their articles lol.

[Garethvk]

Thank you. Ms one and Nintendo due in the next two weeks.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

From the article;

"The Playstation Camera is a nice piece of hardware but aside from Twitch, it does not seem to be getting much support. Hopefully with the launch of the share service this hardware will get more and more use as streaming is a very popular and with the share feature of the system, it would be nice to see more games take advantage of this feature in the future."

I mean other than facial recognition software and streaming, what type of support is anyone else looking for? *chuckle* There have been hundreds of millions of Ps4 streams on UStream and Twitch so I have no idea what the author is trying to say in this statement.

Another silly statement;

"The Playstation Experience mainly focused on games we knew about."

There were trailers for Kill Strain, The Forest, The Killing Floor 2.

Bloodborne showed off co-op gameplay and procedurally generated dungeons, something no one knew about.

Then there was Drawn To Death. An interesting NEW IP that was introduced.

Playstation Experience was three hours. Does anyone actually think that Bllodborne, UC4, and Street Fighter 5 took 3 hours to introduce?

Then there was this statement which is the most ridiculous of them all;

"The Playstation Network has had security issues and the company recently had a severe hack where several of its films reportedly were leaked online ahead of their planned release dates."

The hack effected Sony Pictures. Sony films and movies are not developed/produced/distributed by Playstation network.

This article is weak with facts but has plenty of made up opinions.

[Garethvk]

I have known about all the games mentioned for months.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

So you knew that Bloodborne has procedurally generated dungeons and co-op gameplay?

You knew about Drawn To Death even though it was never announced until PlayStation Experience?

Seriously dude. Unless you work for PlayStation I doubt that you knew about any of the 3 things I just mentioned before December 6th 2014, unless you're psychic.

[freshslicepizza]

playstation network has had issues and the service still needs to shut down parts or all of it just to do routine maintenance. the system itself has had update issues and features still missing in action which they talked about before the system launched. driveclub was a disaster and the free game offerings on plus remain questionable while they scoff at the idea of ea access where gamers at least have some idea of what the games will be. on plus its a crapshoot and most of the time its indie titles. sony also had a rather weak line-up during the most high profile time of the year, relying on third parties to carry them during the holidays. and their own software still seems lacking to gain much attention to make the ps4 a must have system.

this article talks about what they did wrong. obviously sony did more things right so why do some people have a hard time saying anything bad? they still far outsold everyone else, they still had more games, and they still have the best momentum all year round with worldwide appeal but why can't an article talk about what could have been better without supporters getting defensive?

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

Yeah they did somethings wrong but some of those things are not what were mentioned in this article. PSN being more stable experience with messages is one of the things still giving me issues. But as far as games go my backlog just keeps getting bigger even without Sony exclusives. Also go buy LBP3 and make a level to hold you over until January and February when lot's of new games are going to start coming out. It's a fun game if your not an over serious FPS gamer. Also yes some indies suck but more than anything you have to like retro games and lots of gamers do. Everyone gets defensive when something they love is getting hated on and can easily die because it's not popular. Driveclub is not a big issue unless you only bought it to play online but yeah the online issues took way to long to fix and I'm still waiting for the plus version. But what I want more than anything on PS4 is a PS1/PS2 emulator.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

@moldybread

"playstation network has had issues and the service still needs to shut down parts or all of it just to do routine maintenance. the system itself has had update issues and features still missing in action which they talked about before the system launched."

I completely agree, PSN has had some issues, but the article claims that the recent hack that managed to gain access to the personal information of actors, employees, and the theft of several movies had something to do with PSN, THAT IS FALSE.

"driveclub was a disaster and the free game offerings on plus remain questionable while they scoff at the idea of ea access where gamers at least have some idea of what the games will be."

The launch of DriveClub was botched, but it's far from a disaster. As for your thoughts on what PS plus offers, that's your opinion and nothing more.

"this article talks about what they did wrong."

The problem with the article is that some of the topics the author chose to mention are highly subjective and a matter of opinion or completely false. That's not a discussion, it's a smear campaign.

" why can't an article talk about what could have been better without supporters getting defensive?"

There's nothing wrong with discussing what Playstation has done wrong if the discussion is based on facts, but when people claim that PSN had movies and personal information stolen from it, that is not the truth. The hack affected Sony Pictures and Sony Entertainment/Music, it had absolutely nothing to do with PlayStation Network. If you think that pointing out things that are fictitious is being defensive, perhaps I am a bit defensive when it comes to the truth.

[Mega24]

Um, PlayStation Experience wasn't just the Keynote. PSX was about the games they had on the show floor, and there were a lot of games for people to experience. The convention was the experience not the stream.

[freshslicepizza]

i agree the hack had to do with the films but they mention that within the article. what they are guilty of is adding it to ps4 concerns and system update issues which you are right, two separate issues.

[Lulz_Boat]

wrong??

LOL

11 months with top sales and you call it "wrong"? LOL

[Imalwaysright]

I know right? As gamers/consumers that's all that should matter to us: sales!

[kayoss]

16 million console sold world wide in little of a year, to the author it is wrong... SMH
I dont understand what he was trying to prove with this article.

[Imalwaysright]

Biggest mistake was Driveclub's launch.

[kayoss]

This i will agree. I mean the single player campaign was great but in all honesty. They should have delayed the game a little longer to give us a working Multiplayer, weather, and all the updates. This game would have been completely awesome.
I mean im playing it with the new weather updates and the game plays so much differently.

[LightofDarkness]

What has slowed their momentum somewhat was simply backing the wrong horses this year. Destiny and Drive Club were not the best IPs to link your console to, as a showcase of the level of quality and what to expect from it going forward. MS made a similar mistake with MCC (Bungie's legacy seems to be a big draw in the eyes of both companies), but that was much more of a sure thing and Sunset Overdrive was a very pleasant surprise, with a rather attractive White console bundle to go along with it.

Both companies really only served this year to demonstrate that the Big N is where you want to go for quality and consistency. The paltry offerings and persistent quality concerns from both of the other consoles have strengthened Nintendo's position in the market and cast a great deal of doubt in the competency of AAA development, both third and first party. Next year we need to see a much greater focus on quality and much more honest release schedules, practically every big game of 2014 is now a 2015 game and they're still slipping further and further into the year.

What this year has really shown is that Sony, and to a similar degree MS, were not prepared for the complexity of developing current gen games.

[feraldrgn]

They didn't do anything "wrong" per say, par Driveclub's launch, Microsoft just pulled all the stops to get ahead.

[NotAfanBoyy]

Oh no you didn't!! This is psN4G...

[Viryu]

+1 Mistake - SingStar not having an ability to be streamed

[MilkMan]

In a word? Destiny.

[endzeitkind]

we have a porfessor here. lol spare my life