What's everyone's thought on the PS4

[nich]

Was announced last month and I'm really impressed. It has great features that aren't stupid motion control gimmicks (Well it technically has motion control and touch control but that's not the focus of the system). The ability to watch your friends play live (Kind of like an Xbox Live part but you can actually watch them play instead of just talk to them). They're saying they aim to make every PS1, PS2, and PS3 game available on the PS4 (Rumor is by streaming the games).

But the major thing is they are focused on the games. They got some good third party games and they said everyone of their first party studios are working on a game for the console. Even Naught Dog who is currently working on the Last of Us for the PS3.

For the next Xbox it's not looking so good. They're having some press release sometime in April but the rumor is they're going to focus less on games and more on "a living room media hub" (Thanks Microsoft but I think I'll stick with the Smart TVs that are impossible to avoid). The fact that Halo, Gears of War, and Fable are the only real reason to get a 360 it looks like they're going to make this worse.

I'm a huge Halo fan. But I think I'm going to skip Halo 5. Especially if it's the only reason to buy the new console. Also Halo 4 was a major disappointing. It's fun but it's also ruined by bad programming and stupid design choices. Also they dumbed down the game to Call of Duty standards. Also the Special Edition of the game was a worthless additional $40 for shazam! that I can literally get for free or don't care about.

[Moe]

I agree on not getting the next console just for Halo 5, in fact, I am in process of transitioning out of console gaming, and into computer gaming.... And to get back to the topic(according to the title), I've never been too into Playstation(Never even bought a PS3), and due to that, as well as some other reasons, I haven't been following the PS4 very much.

[Wesley]

Remember the Atari 5200? No, you don't. Well, let me tell you about it. It was the next big thing after Atari dominated the home video game market with the Atari 2600. Twice as good, right, 5200, get it? Anyway, while it did have a few very good games, it would not play all the 2600 games that you already owned. Because of this lack of backwards compatibility, sales for the 5200 were not great. A year or so later, they came out with the Atari 7800 (I sense a theme...) which WOULD play your old 2600 games. More people who already had a bunch of games purchased this one because they felt like it was increasing the value of the investment they already made.

Fast forward 30 years and it is easy to see that sales are plummeting for PS3, but if you look in many closets in America, you will see stacks of Play Station and PS2 games. If the PS4 truly makes their entire back catalog available online, I may even buy one, even though I am a decidedly OLD old school gamer.

It is a trend that Nintendo was playing with by partnering with SEGA to make many of their older games available for the wii. I think it is a great idea, and will most likely give Sony the edge for another season.

[Moe]

Remember the Atari 5200? No, you don't.

I've never played one, much less even seen one in person, but I've read about them --- I spent a few afternoons looking into Atari and it's history.

[nich]

Remember the Atari 5200? No, you don't. Well, let me tell you about it. It was the next big thing after Atari dominated the home video game market with the Atari 2600. Twice as good, right, 5200, get it? Anyway, while it did have a few very good games, it would not play all the 2600 games that you already owned. Because of this lack of backwards compatibility, sales for the 5200 were not great. A year or so later, they came out with the Atari 7800 (I sense a theme...) which WOULD play your old 2600 games. More people who already had a bunch of games purchased this one because they felt like it was increasing the value of the investment they already made.

Fast forward 30 years and it is easy to see that sales are plummeting for PS3, but if you look in many closets in America, you will see stacks of Play Station and PS2 games. If the PS4 truly makes their entire back catalog available online, I may even buy one, even though I am a decidedly OLD old school gamer.

It is a trend that Nintendo was playing with by partnering with SEGA to make many of their older games available for the wii. I think it is a great idea, and will most likely give Sony the edge for another season.

Actually just recently the PS3 surpassed the 360 in worldwide sales.

There's been lots of complaints that the PS4 has no disc backwards compatibility. However If it is available for streaming I don't see the issue. Netflix is amazing because you have instant access to all your TV shows and movies for free (With the small subscription fee of coarse). You can pay off your subscription by watching unlimited content.

If it really does have access to every single PlayStation game ever it will be a good idea. No more scratches. No more hunts for rare games. You'll have a huge collection of games to play whenever you want. But the only way it's going to work is if it's a subscription like Netflix. If you have you pay for each individual game then they can just forget it.

So yeah you're technically paying money for games you already paid for (Retail) but when you think about it it's very profitable in the long run. My only concern is if it's going to be available at launch. I mean it's not easy for them to build a catalog that has every single PS game.