![]() "With so many platforms to support, much less value is found today in exotic technology such as 'blast processing' or a super computer on a chip," Cerny said. "We were able to create in the PlayStation 4 a platform by game creators, for game creators" Mark Cerny ![]() Whereas Ken "PS3 is probably too cheap" Kutaragi was the face of the previous console, Sony had PS4 lead system architect Mark Cerny introduce the PS4, making it clear right off the bat that the company was taking a different approach. At the very least, it didn't seem like Sony was going to be giving Microsoft a $200 price advantage this time around.Īs for the actual unveiling, it was largely focused on reassuring people that Sony hadn't repeated its other mistakes from the PS3, with an unusual-for-the-time emphasis on how developer-friendly the hardware would be. While it didn't address the price point directly, reports had been circulating that (accurately) suggested a $400 launch price point in the US, and analysts and retailers alike were in the right neighborhood on pricing expectations. The PS4 unveiling was Sony's attempt to acknowledge that it had learned from its mistakes. And worst of all, if you remember, was the price point." We reacted too slowly, and our network was under-developed. We created a devilish development environment. ![]() "As we sometimes call it, PS3 was our Icarus moment," he said looking back on the system in 2019. It was, as Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden would later say, "a stark moment of hubris" for the company. It also alienated consumers with a two-tier hardware offering that started at $500 when the competing Xbox 360 launched a year earlier with a $300 model. Sony alienated developers with complex hardware and a custom Cell processor that promised more power but in practice often led to inferior versions of multiplatform titles. If you go back to the last time Sony launched a home console, the PS3 debut was downright disastrousĪnd if you go back to the last time Sony launched a home console, the PS3 debut was downright disastrous. (I was the most upbeat on the system, and the best suggestion I had for salvaging something out of it at the time was to market the thing as a throwback and hope you could get traditional gamers to support it.) To give some idea of how bad it was, we ran a "Saving PlayStation Vita" roundtable just ten months after launch. It had launched the PlayStation Vita exactly a year before, and that did not go well. Keep in mind, Sony was a little out of practice at this point. While the Wii U may have been floundering, the console space did receive a significant injection of excitement in February, as Sony began the month by sending out invites to a New York City unveiling of the PlayStation 4. "In many ways what we're describing as Gen 4 is yet to come, and that's what we're excited about and that's what we're investing in." "A lot of devices come in and represent themselves as the next generation," Riccitiello said. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told investors he was "somewhat disappointed with the launch of the Wii U" and EA CEO John Riccitiello suggested to them that the Wii U shouldn't even be considered a next-gen system. The launch had a number of red flags, and the months that followed only brought more.įebruary of 2013 saw Wii U exclusives Rayman Legends and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge being quickly moved to multiplatform launches while major third-party partners threw shade on the console. Yes, the Wii U had actually launched the previous November, but it was not exactly rekindling any spark of excitement around gaming. After all, it had been more than seven years since the last generation of consoles kicked off, and the next generation of consoles still hadn't been announced. We talked a bit last month about the rash of doomsday predictions for console gaming, and how they were growing in popularity during a particularly uninspiring stretch for the console market. So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field's history, runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past. The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before.
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