PlayStation 4 - Announced

Last night, after weeks of speculation, Sony officially unveiled its next console from a live event in New York: the PlayStation 4. Straight away I can tell you that this conference confirmed release of the new hardware during 2013.

Sony's Andrew House explained to the masses that the new console will create "experiences that surpass gamers' wildest expectations," which in other words is a standard tagline.

The various members of the PlayStation 4 team highlighted that their goal was to produce a platform for “game creators by game creators” and that the hardware has the architecture of a PC.

The PS4 (we know that’s what it’ll be labelled) uses the X86 CPU and has 8GB of memory alongside a local hard drive. It’s use of APU technology and GDDR5 memory means that it sit in line with the top end graphics cards.

Again we are treated to the ‘entertainment system’ tagline that Microsoft and Sony have both be frivolously stating at every opportunity over the last few years. However while Microsoft has gone for the all-in-one approach - Sony have simplicity at the core.

The PlayStation 4 supports suspending and reloading play sessions, uploading and downloading in the background during play (which is a function that needed to be built in – especially with this being a standard on the current Xbox 360 console).

The system supports seamless uploads of gameplay, spectating friends' gameplay sessions in real time as well as integrated chat. Players will have profile pages like Facebook integrated to the "full PlayStation ecosystem."

PlayStation 4 offers personalization and will "get to know you" although the specifics of how are yet to be known.

Sony did not release the design of the console or the price for the unit as they look towards Microsoft’s release (expected to be April) before anything concrete is announced. I said going into the evening that Sony would have to price Microsoft out of the market – and potential expect losses from each sale – if they were going to fire off a price guide on day one.

Reading through a lot of the major Video Game sites reviews it seems that they expected the whole ‘play on words’ style announcement that we were given. Each member of the Sony team spun off word plays using ‘consumer-centric’, ‘cultural advantage’ and ‘personal habitat’ as if they’d be contracted in by some sort of cult.

It all means that PlayStation will do some smart things, things that will make my gaming life less frustrating, more enjoyable. Behind the bland words were actual benefits.

There's a cool new controller that works with motion-control too. You can now play games while they are downloading just like Steam. You can share videos of games, without any actual effort. You can try games without downloading them, or paying for them. You can spectate and play someone else’s game from a distant location – and of course you can play PS4 games on your Vita.

The PlayStation ambassadors came out again and showed off some of the games – here is a quick overview for those that haven’t logged into YouTube recently to see them for themselves.

·         The only really great game was Watch Dogs – definitely a world-beater.

·         Killzone: Shadow Fall looked lovely but seems to be a nothing special shooting game.

 

·         Infamous Second Son looks exactly how you imagine it to.

·         Drive Club looks like the best car game since the last one and was quoted exactly in this manner.

·         The Witness looks like a game we’ve been waiting ages to play, and now will have to wait longer as we still saw no gameplay of the darn thing.

·         Deep Down looks like Dark Souls only with prettier animations and less grey.

·         Destiny was also confirmed for PS4 but still nothing but concept art was shown.

·         Diablo 3 is coming to consoles and looks exactly the same as it’s PC counterpart.

It did dawn on me though that although the PlayStation 4 will be neat it’s nothing more than we originally expected. It’s not smashing any barriers like the PS1 to PS2 generation change.

This PS3-PS4 leap requires something extra. And that something extra is services, connectivity, ease-of-use, social abilities and other useful things.

We found out when the console is coming, but there were words missing too. Words like 'PlayStation 4 will be priced at...." and "look at the pretty box you'll be putting by your TV soon".

What did you think of the showing? Is there anything you’re really excited about?

 

(Concept Art)

 

 

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Social Networks - Our Virtual Footprints

When Twitter jumped into our digital world a few years ago I LOATHED the idea of it.

I enjoyed Facebook for personal friends and family; seeing pictures of my friends on their holidays and keeping in touch with others that were just too far way to get together with at short notice.

One of these particular friends said to me recently that he finds social networking makes us talk less. I tend to disagree with this statement entirely – at least from personal experience. If there is a person I haven’t seen in ‘real life’ for a while I can already see what they’ve been up to and base our conversation on catching up with them.

Facebook, for me, is starting to feel over played and everything interesting that people post has already been on Reddit for weeks in advance. I got twitter because, frankly, I didn’t have the time to keep a track of everything going on and wanted to supplement the casual articles I write on here. It feels a little worthless to only post on here as most interest savvy people won’t even go to each other’s home.com. You’d much rather see their short and sweet tweets or like their Facebook to keep up with their feed.

 

There’s a point when you hit a certain amount of ‘interested’ follows that almost every tweet you post will have an imminent response. The problem is, unless you already have a good idea of Twitter, you’re easily open to breaking the similar rules that it follows:

•          If you misspell ANYTHING you’re IMMEDIATELY trolled on it. In fact, it almost always ruins the entire point of your tweet and in a day of predictive text for phone updates this can be a fairly common occurrence.

•          If you post something and delete it IMMEDIATELY it’s guaranteed that someone screen capped what you posted. (I’m looking at you @JoeyBarton, @PopeBenedict)

•          If you make any allusions about politics, race, sex, or religion you are opening a giant can of worms that’s not even worth touching so just don’t do it.

•          If you stick to the above you’ll eventually have tweets that boil down to your day-to-day life and usually this means nothing all that interesting for your followers.

I like to think I am a fairly well rounded adult but when I tweet about anything other than video games or comic’s people seem to instantaneous attempt to find a connection. It’s a typical response and one that usually shows that my followers are only there for one reason – the next article or the next review.

Then there are the people that feel the need to tell me that they’re unfollowing me…. Really? In this day and age do you really feel the need to bash someone online? As an old GIF once said ‘starting an argument on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics’ (looks like I broke my own rule already).  Contrary to popular belief, sharing your thoughts and actually putting yourself out there does require some courage and time/effort, and those people that post funny/interesting stuff do it because they enjoy it and they actually want to. There is a massive difference between the entertaining tweets of @kellyoxford and the boring stuff found on your own profile.

They’re doing YOU the favour.

You have the freedom to follow, and you also have the freedom to not read it. Just don’t announce that you’re spitting your dummy out and going home, because no one ever liked that fucking kid in the first place.

What the fuck.

And, interestingly – my girlfriend will love this - 9/10 of the worst, most cynical, nasty tweets come from the UK. You click the profile, and there it is - “Go Manchester United.”

Anyways, here are a few things that I’ll keep posting about, and if you don’t like it, don’t read it.

SPORT

Now I’m not the biggest sport’s fan ever or the most knowledgeable but I do enjoy a good game of pretty much anything. Football and Basketball are where my real passions lay but I’m fond of a whole selection of different sports. As I’m sure you are aware I support Liverpool and Miami Heat, and I’ll happily explain why to anyone who wants to know. I’ve followed both teams since as far back as I can remember and have a lot of fond memories from each. I still regularly watch the Champions League Final of Istanbul in 2005 where ‘Captain Fantastic’ brought us back from the edge of what might have been the most disheartening display of football ever.

I like to think that I’m a normal sort of sports fan - people have their opinions and are welcome to them. The people that I despise are the ones that become rude, obnoxious and personal because their team lost or because I tweeted that their performance wasn’t up to their usual standard.

It’s pathetic to hate on someone for telling the truth – and chances are you’ve said the same thing about my team when we haven’t played so well either. Grow a pair!

BOOKS/COMICs

I’ve always been a massive comic fan, in particular of the Superhero variety, and this has given me a wide range of personal feelings about characters or storylines. I’m not saying I’m ever right but I have an opinion and if it’s not something you agree with then reply with what you think. I love a health discussion on these sorts of subjects and it seems to be one of the few things in life that everyone is always divided on.

On top of comics I love all types of books, except anything about love, and always seems to be digging into something or other. I’m currently running through ‘A Dance with Dragons’ which (for those who don’t know) is the fifth book in a ‘Song of Fire and Ice’ sage. It’s actually the first time in ages that I’ve felt like I’m reading something where I don’t know what will happen next and I’d recommend it to you all. It’s far better than the TV series and has a lot more depth than people give it credit for.

VIDEO GAMES

If you’ve followed me on twitter or read this blog before you’ll know, as the title suggests, that I am a little bit of a Video Game fan. I’ve played games since I was old enough to stand and don’t imagine that will ever change. I love escapism in any form and the idea that I can be wandering a fantasy world one second and a futuristic steam punk city the next thrills me no end.

I don’t really have a favourite genre anymore but in the day and age I appreciate content more than ever. Too many games are released these days with a 6 hour single player and a weak multiplayer that any 30 hour epic gets my money first. I don’t get the time to play as much as I have in the past so I want to make sure my money is well spent.

Obviously I loathed twitter, but now I love it so add me up and lets be friends forever @somemanwithplan (remember there’s no ‘A’)

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Bioshock: The Movie Failure

It's unfortunate that the BioShock movie never took off, because at one point, it was looking like very smooth sailing. The film had a budget of $200 million, and with Pirates director Gore Verbinski on board, what could go wrong?

As it happens – EVERYTHING!

BioShock: The Movie has taken a sizable budget cut and Verbinski has also left the project which pretty much leaves us in limbo about the whole thing. While speaking at a BAFTA event in London earlier this week, Ken Levine explained why he thinks the project didn't work out -- and the culprit may actually surprise you: "There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it. And what happened was -- this is my theory -- it's a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a 'hard-rated' horror film -- an R-rated film with a lot of blood. Then Watchmen came out -- and I really liked Watchmen -- but it didn't do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R-rated $200 million film."

He explained that Universal "brought another director in and I didn't really see the match there -- Take Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, 'If you want to kill it Ken, kill it.' And I killed it." Levine said he ultimately didn't want to "see it done in a way I didn't think was right."

(story via: EDGE Online)

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