Anyone think the presentation was weak?

Instead of boldly upending the industry, Nintendo Wii-style, Sony’s initial play seems straight from the PlayStation 3 playbook: Spiff up the visuals, fold in some trendy “social” gameplay features, add buzzwords like “synergy” and “reconceptualizing” as frosting and presto, a PlayStation 3 + 1! Even the PS4′s vaunted instant suspend and resume feature sounds more like Sony playing catchup: tablets and smartphones have had that technology for years.

From what I've seen so far (I haven't watched everything from the event yet), I'm very underwhelmed. Even the games I've seen don't really look "next gen" to me. If this is what I should expect from the next Xbox as well, I'll stick with my current systems and play the cutting-edge new games on my PC.

It looks pretty interesting, but what really matters will be price. If it launches at $300 then it's a different story.

I'm probably not going to buy one at launch, mostly because I never buy the first skew of a console because in a year there will be a better, cheaper one that doesn't play PS2 games. Also because I'm saving up to get a beast gaming laptop for college.

I've been trying to explain to people for a long time ... even if we keep double or quadrupling graphics processing ability ... they're not going to be very impressed with the resulting visuals. (They are drastically improved, it was hard to see in the live streams, but it is significantly higher fidelity ... not that it's going to matter, because developers have been using graphical tricks for so long, people thought we had higher end graphics a long time ago)

The console is what you should be expecting from them (and Microsoft, for that matter). It's a drastically large increase in hardware capacity (the system is on par with the computer I just built, literally) as well as a novel addition, there's additional hardware used exclusively for background activity (very good idea). The real-time video encoding is something that should be standard on platforms, but here it has the potential for streaming to devices over the net (if latency is low enough). They talked about in home streaming to Vita, but net would be possible, speed is the only issue.

Sony has NEVER come rolling out of the gate with a new console that looked revolutionary. It's always just been claims of "best experience". if you want innovation ... you're going to have to look for that in games themselves, not the platforms they're on.

What will be good from this coming generation is ... there's not going to be as many radical differences between hardware platforms, the rumored Xbox specs are in line with what we saw the PS4 have, x86 architecture, 8 core AMD CPU, 8GB RAM, etc. Believe it or not, this is actually going to make games better ... but you're going to have to learn how to see the difference. Since 3D games started ... gamers have been visually lied to through various means ... if you never spotted the issues resulting from these, then ... yeah you're going to think this looks exactly the same, just higher resolution, but it's not. I think that the next area that's going to be tackled in games is simulation. We're going to see more things in the world simulated, rather than estimated statically. So, instead of a gun shot animation when someone is being shot, it'll be physics simulated ... while that sounds awesome (it is) it's not going to appear all that different at first.

For example, if you didn't notice in the Killzone video, there are several graphical things going on that are not possible on current consoles. (PC, of course, it's the basis hardware for this new box) A. Draw distance was extremely far without flickering or models popping in and out of existence B. lighting was global illumination ... only Crysis 2 and 3 can really claim to have this (and SOME late UE3 titles have some GI) Shadows are still bunk, just higher resolution bunk. C. particle simulation. The smoke in the demo appears to all be mostly simulated particles. Which is NOT what other games (besides Crysis) use. Normally it's a 2D sprite on a quad. As a result, you get clipping through the world. (It's the reason why you see hard lines on fog and smoke when hitting the ground in most games) That didn't happen in that demo. D. the textures are high enough resolution that you don't notice them anymore.

So, what this stuff is going to allow is creating experiences that weren't possible before ... developers aren't going to make PC exclusive titles, so it's good that consoles are getting some parity in that area (at least for now) games are going to become multi-threaded (fantastic) 64-bit (finally) and physics activated besides just some extra eye candy. These are all good things, and they will radically change the way we play games (Developers will be free to start moving away from static environments, for example)

I'm not sure what to think of the DualShock 4, though. I guess it looks like it'd be comfortable. The ability to track where everyone is at will be good, if it works right (it should, the cameras are pretty high resolution, which they didn't talk about at all). The whole touchpad on the face of the device, I'm not really sure how that's going to help me out, honestly. I suppose most developers will use it for more precise aiming in shooters? (Which would actually be really awkward, even if it's just for small adjustments)

I like the idea of sharing stuff ... I don't like the idea of anyone being able to see what I'm playing (or taking control of what I'm playing). Though, the environment still doesn't seem as well fleshed out as MiiVerse.

I think that consoles, in general, aren't going to be as drastically impressive until they become backbone boxes with the ability to change hardware inside them. And, it wouldn't have to be complicated or anything, just kit 1, kit 2, kit 3, etc over several years, and make it as simple as changing the N64 Expansion Pak. Then you'd still upgrade units every 3 or so years ... but it'd be way cheaper (like $150) and it'd take about 5 minutes to do. And it'd be purely optional. You just offer the current kit with whatever units you have out there ... which is what they already do, they just don't increase hardware capacity ... they do decrease it though

Anyway, being jaded and down on it is silly ... I'm not sure how you can expect revolution after revolution when this has never been Sony's foray. What they displayed is roughly on par with current mid-range PCs with moderate graphics cards ... but games aren't being made with that setup in mind, so now they will be, and that makes me happier. And we finally have a hardware level to do some of the stuff I've wanted to see for the last 15 years. So, this is good.

That shit ain't no 4K though. That's 1080p (which the current systems are NOT) And I imagine based on what's in it ... the price is going to be around $400. The hardware isn't uncommon or ultra expensive, so don't expect PS3 prices. The last thing I will say ... I'm worried about the RAM size ... 8GB unified isn't exactly an enormous amount, if it were 16GB (which would cost them about $8 more per unit) then this would truly be a beast. I guess we'll just see how well devs manage the shared space.

Look at Tom posting like a champ. Retired, I think not!

Anyway, considering my PS3 has been collecting dust for about a year now and the new God of War and maybe Last of Us will be the last PS3 games I get, I'm not going to be plunking down money for a PS4 anytime soon. This will likely be the first generation since the Super NES I'm going one console.

Just read an Yahoo article about this, and checked out the photos, and...well.... I think this image pretty sums up my reaction.

I don't think I have found anybody who actually liked the presentation...

To me, that controller looks pretty awful. The share button and that touch pad make everything look so congested and unnecessary. None of the games look all that impressive and most of them were just more iterations on franchises. The only interesting part was Diablo III as I was pretty amazed to hear that Blizzard was going back into the console market.

All the hype was pretty overblown and a part of me thought it would be a presentation of Sony closing their gaming doors. The game industry is in some pretty dark times with a very unstable future. I don't know if the PS4/720/WiiU have what it takes to pull them out of this downward spiral.

gotta wait and see what xbox cooks up, I know this much, if xbox blocks used games and requires an always on internet connection, both of which sony has said they wont do, it will be playstation all the way.

I kind of like the dual shock 4, it looks like with the smaller analog sticks the controller goes back to the original shape of the very first playstation controller which I loved.

There is a pretty large movement of old school gamers who are pretty much saying they are done with console gaming as a whole. Consoles are no longer the centerpiece of the gaming universe that they once were, when friends needed to travel to other friends house and actually play on the same console, same television and take turns when there were more than two people. Now they are these center of the known universe, multimedia, social networking hubs that oh yeah, play games too.

I noticed a trend with Gen7 consoles - my friends and I never play games together on them, in person or online. By never I mean rarely, we recently got some Portal 2 in, some BlazBlue a while back, and um....five minutes of Gears of War and Halo 3. But when we get together, what do we sit down and play? Tecmo Super Bowl, Double Dragon 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Gradius 5, River City Ransom, TMNT IV, Sunset Riders, and Contra/Contra III.

We play PC games together, sometimes they are ports of console games, sometimes not. But for the most part we really never socially game on any Gen7's.

Not only was I underwhelmed by the press conference, I just didn't care. I doubt I'll pick up any of the next generation consoles. I really think I'm done with consoles from here on out. I have my PC which does everything I could ever want, I have my collection which is so back logged that I'll never get through it all, and I have 2 PSP's if I want to do any retro gaming on the go.

I'm not even that sad about it, I just never imagined it would actually happen.

Same here Jeff. I think I've actually reached that point myself. This current/about to be past generation I got really close to that point. If it wasn't for Skyward Sword, then it would be almost 3 years now that I really played my Wii. I haven't played my PS3 since Uncharted 3, other than some PS and PS2 games. The 360 is the only console I've consistently used. And I only got a 3DS to play Resident Evil Revelations and had I just been a bit more patient, I wouldn't have even needed to do that (I know we're talking consoles but I'm lumping them in too).

I've barely considered buying a Vita, and that's only because it has an Uncharted, Resistance, and Assassin's Creed game, but who knows those could get ported. I haven't even once considered buying a Wii U because I'm severely underwhelmed and there's literally nothing on the system I want and nothing coming out anytime soon I want. The days of me buying a console for one game are over.

I thought the specs were pretty impressive, but I agree completely that the conference was filled with too many buzz words and focus on social gaming to take it seriously. It would have been nice to get an official price point or release date... or hey, how about showing us some damn gameplay! At least it sounds like they admitted that using a proprietary cell processor and lack of RAM was a mistake and made development and porting a nightmare. I am actually more excited about this than the WiiU, which seems to be cool at first, but ultimately a dust collector like the Wii. Only time will tell in my opinion.. although, it kind of scares me that they are planning to rush it out by holiday season 2013. I think the price point and launch lineup will determine whether I will buy it the first year or wait a few years until good games come out like what happened with the PS3.

I thought the specs were pretty impressive, but I agree completely that the conference was filled with too many buzz words and focus on social gaming to take it seriously. It would have been nice to get an official price point or release date... or hey, how about showing us some damn gameplay! At least it sounds like they admitted that using a proprietary cell processor and lack of RAM was a mistake and made development and porting a nightmare. I am actually more excited about this than the WiiU, which seems to be cool at first, but ultimately a dust collector like the Wii. Only time will tell in my opinion.. although, it kind of scares me that they are planning to rush it out by holiday season 2013. I think the price point and launch lineup will determine whether I will buy it the first year or wait a few years until good games come out like what happened with the PS3.

Well, I will not buy one unless they have some other surprise. My ps3 collects dust right now, their exclusives are not good enough for me to care. God of war is getting played out, killzone always sucked and resistance never had a clear direction. If the Vita is any sign on the direction for how they are going to go.... Sony is clearly a bad choice.

While I agree with you on God of War, I really enjoy Killzone. The multiplayer is fun and I always thought the Helghast were interesting. I never really played Resistance, but what about other exclusives like Little Big Planet, Infamous, Gran Turismo and Uncharted.

Last time I checked there's a metric ton more exclusives than three franchises.

I guess if you're excluding anything non-shooter or straight action game, there's nothing left ...

I agree that Resistance and Killzone kind of suck. I never really liked the hack and slash games like GOW to begin with. Microsoft has also had its share of exclusive bombs like the later Fable and Gears of War games. I still get some good use out of my PS3, but mostly play it because I don't have an Xbox, so I play a lot of the multi platform games on that. I really want to love Nintendo like I used to, but for some reason my Wii gets left in the dust.. maybe its just my game preference.

I like the Uncharted series, all 3 console games are solid. I also liked the Infamous series, both games were good.

The first 2 Resistance games were great, the last one seemed rushed and overall the game was pretty meh.

I've grown pretty weary of the God of War series, it's really gotten stale.

Sony showed that they are first and foremost about the games and the community. That is the place I want to be.

Sony's community sucks balls now, do you think that their sharing program will make it better?

Most gaming communities suck balls these days. You have to find some little hole-in-the-wall hangout *gameheroes, cough cough* to find a community worth giving a clean shit about.