Yesterday saw Sony have a little meeting in which they shared with gamers around the world two brand new consoles they have coming to the market this year. First up we had the PS4 Slim (will totally get one of these at some point, I promise), and the stat stacked fanboy edition in the PS4 Pro. Now, if any of us are honest wth each other here, I'm sure we can all agree that the event felt like something put together by kids in a secondary school, in which we had a lot of image headers and buzz words thrown at us and little else. Sure we had snippets of gameplay here and there to make it seem like something, but telling the average guy/girl that said game will look amazing on this console while watching it through a crappy YouTube/Twitch app isn't really going to do it justice. This is not an attack Sony post by the way, I just want to make that clear. I was a PS1/PS2 guy growing up, but watching this last night just made me begin to think we've forgot the key element of what makes a game great.
Over the last few years gaming has changed a hell of a lot in how they look and how we now play them. The HD gaming scene kicked in for me in the 360 era but not at the very start, as I was still happy playing it on my old school Sony 32-inch brick TV for the first few years. HD wasn't a big deal to me at all at the time, but of course now it's something we take for granted. As times change the next buzz item to own are 4K TV's, but with them costing an absolute ton of money at the moment they are still a very niche item, and in my eyes an item only people with money to burn are picking up. Sure this will change as years pass and the price lowers and becomes more affordable to regular Joe, but I just find it odd that all upcoming consoles are all about this now. I say this because other than making a game brighter or a bit more crisp, what does that extra £100 actually bring to the table? Strip away all this 4K stuff and what does it offer to the guy who doesn't own such a TV?
As a non-tech-guy, numbers and buzz words mean nothing to me, with the main area of purchase when picking up a new console being cost and games on offer shown off around the launch. Will a game having a more orange sunset make me buy a Pro this Xmas? Hell no it won't. Will the PS4 Slim at an affordable £250 be where my attention and other parents goes? yeah, it bloody will.
We are in a period now where companies are getting sidetracked with gamers who run onto forums and places like Reddit yapping about 900p/1080p and the like, when 70% could not give two shi** about it. Games are there for an escape, and not for me to sit there and worry about me seeing a sunset a mile away, unless that sunset has a key role in the game I could not care about it. Take my most hated Xbox One game to date in Toro. The game sits at a stupid price and plays and looks horrible. Say it was going to look a little bit better with all this new stuff under the hood, would it make the game better? No, as behind all that shiny stuff thrown at my eyes it would still be utter dog sh**. We seem to be forgetting here that behind all this smoke and mirrors there has to be a game that makes it worthwhile, and making something more shiny will not make a game anymore of a worthwhile purchase. Both consoles should be worrying about all of this fancy stuff on their next consoles, as by then 4K might be more of a worldwide thing, rather than something only the well off or people running up credit all over the place can enjoy.
So what are your thoughts, be sure to let me know in the comments or on social media