Sony Bites Back: PS4 Announced

So, the worst kept secret in the videogame industry was outed last night when Sony officially announced the Playstation 4 - scheduled to be in your living room this Christmas (or undoubtedly Easter for those of us in the Eurozone).

This announcement is significant in a lot of ways for Sony, the Playstation brand and indeed for Microsoft - the arch nemesis for said brand.

Playstation 4 announced in NYC

I am a diehard Playstation guy, having owned every Playstation console to date but I was concerned that for the second generation running, Sony was going to be playing catch-up to Microsoft. Yes, rumors of SDK's going out to developers were persistent but there was more talk of Xbox 720 release timescales and reveals than anything else. I would say I've heard more about the Xbox 720 in the last year than I have about the WiiU - a console that is already on shelves!

When Sony announced their "Playstation 2013" event, I was sceptical - moreso following the reveal of the tablet controller patent a few weeks ago - I thought we would see some combination of the tablet, a Vita hardware refresh or something new for Move. I was also concerned that Sony was again all to content to sit back and see what Microsoft was up to. The seventh console generation caused the Playstation Brand a lot of damage early on, with the console being seen as second best for at least half of its lifetime before games like the 2nd and 3rd Uncharted titles and the LittleBigPlanet series broadened appeal.

But as February has moved forward, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive - every gaming site has had an exclusive about the Dualshock 4 controller, analysing and arguing over whether any of the steady stream of pictures was infact legit or just what the new buttons would do and it got to the point last night where a last pang of concern hit me - what if it's really not being announced?

If Sony had played the same game as before and left things until later, then the Playstation brand could have been damaged beyond repair. Microsoft would have delightedly announced the next Xbox at E3 in the summer and Sony would see an increase in pre-owned console sales over Christmas.

Thankfully that has not happened and now it's Microsoft caught on the back foot and that is the best thing for them - the 360 has peaked and is now in steady decline. The innovation that helped the console has deserted it and now Microsoft needs to innovate to get back in the game. My prediction is that Sony will demo the actual console hardware at E3, which will again steal thunder from Redmond, who are still on track to announce then.

Sony has bitten back in a big way with the sudden appearance of the PS4 and it may be enough to win the 8th generation war in the way Microsoft and Nintendo took the 7th by storm.

A rant about the state of digital streaming media

Here in the UK, we are currently being subjected to the Smart TV revolution and in tune with that, we are being bombarded with advertising, sales people at the door, sales people in the street and pretty much anywhere else you can think of. What are they people trying to sell me? A Netflix, NowTV or Love Film subscription.

Full Disclosure: I currently use Netflix because it's compatible with my Roku.

The thing that bothers me about these services is that they all offer a different selection of content because each one has signed up TV Studio X and Movie studio Y to exclusivity deals. Difference here, is that Sky's NowTV has the rights to new movies in the UK for the first 12-18 months after DVD release because of Sky's long standing agreements with studios.

"OK then" you say - get NowTV and that's problem solved. But I grudge paying double what I would pay for either of the others, much as I grudge paying Netflix whenever I see a movie listed on Lovefilm. The general rule of thumb is that Netflix is better for Movies and Lovefilm is better for TV shows, but looking at the UK catalogues for both tells me they both have a solid selection in both TV and film, leaving me back at square one.

I feel there should be some uniformity amongst studios or some regulation that requires them to make content available to any service provider - they can argue about costs etc themselves - but to leave exclusivity and first-run rights out of it so the consumer gets the best deal.

Is that so difficult?