So, last week (the 31st to be specific) over at the Playstation blog, there was a little coy post with the above video that also had a mention of a Playstation Meeting 2013 which will, apparently, be taking place on the 20th of this month of February. The post, titled "See the Future" with the link to the Playstation Meeting page as "Be the first to know." is about as subtle as a brick to the face. Or about as subtle as a teenager with a crush. These are equally not subtle things, is my point. The very, very, very obvious idea is that the Playstation Meeting this year is all about showing off the PS4 in its early stages, a lot like the Playstation Meeting when Sony showed off the Vita, then the NGP. Of course, something had to happen and the Wall Street Journal of all places basically acted like that friend that you hate having because they don't respect your wishes and go tell that person you have a crush on them. Or, in this case, that you're releasing a PS4, but I was continuing the metaphor, you see.
There are a lot of "apparently"s to the situation, so I won't bore you with restating that over and over again, but remember to have a massive load of salt handy for this because there's one part that I can assure you is bullshit. The Wall Street Journal states that the February 20th event will be for unveiling the device, possibly naming it and the like. Conjecture states that it will just be a tech show, no price, no release dates beyond "This year", none of that. Conjecture also states that that information will be discussed at E3 because, let's face it, that makes sense. The WSJ has said that the PS4 will be out before 2013 closes out, which is not completely out of the question, since, well, that is definitely something to shoot for. Obvious thoughts are the Holdiay season, but we'll just have to see.
Of course, they apparently also claim (I say apparently because I'm basing this on the Joystiq article and things quoted from elsewhere. I don't have a WSJ account and I'll be damned if I'll buy one to read.) that Sony designed the console around social aspects rather than hardware improvements which, if the specs we've seen floating around on the internet are true, is kind of -not- true since there is a pretty good hardware bump. They also said that Sony toyed around with the idea of making the thing not have an optical disk drive which is, let's face it bullshit of the highest order. "But they've done digital only devices before!" Yeah, when those devices were previously using a failed physical format (the PSP Go, as the UMD was dead in the water before it even started basically) they surely did cut that option as a way to try and cut costs. Blu-Ray, however, is thriving, coming into its own as -the- medium for folks who want their stuff tangibly so there's absolutely no reason not to have a Blu-Ray drive.
The PS4 rumor mill isn't just concentrated to this singular WSJ post, of course, and has been in swing for a while now. The "Future of Playstation" teasing that Sony did only really stoked the fires up, which is, of course, the entire point. We've heard things from the new controller will have a touchpad on it not unlike the Vita's Rear Touch pad (on the front, though) to the thing using Gakai to stream games from previous Playstation cycles, using that as Backwards Compatibility rather than having anything built in to really facilitate that. We've heard that every single one of Sony's main First/Second parties have had dev kits in their hands for a long time now and will be ready to wow everyone when the curtains drop. We've heard that it's going to push and support 4K resolution.
Ultimately for me, what I haven't heard is why, exactly, I should care. That is very surprising to me and likely you as well, because I mean, I am kind of a Sony guy. I get excited about Sony things. But I dunno, I just don't have a good feeling about this, especially if some of the rumors -are- true, like the streaming BC thing. I mean, let's look at the facts here. Streaming a game just means that a digital version of it is going from A to B. Look at the library of digital PS3 titles we have versus the -actual- library of PS3 titles and realize that it's, what, like 15%? 20%? It's ridiculously small as a number, and that number gets slashed if there's even a remote possibility of PS2 being streamed and handled as such as well. I don't see how -that- is anything to get excited for in the best of circumstances and for me personally, it's basically like saying "Well, it has -no- BC". Which, I mean, is -fine-. I play PS3 games on my PS3. That is its purpose. That I have a dozen PS3 games that I own and haven't played will keep me playing PS3 when the PS4 comes out no matter what.
Really, I'm just not looking forward to the announcement. I'm sure it will show off things that look awesome and will be amazing and all that, and it will be the reason why I eventually get a PS4. I mean, I'm -going- to get a PS4 unless there is something stupid with it like it's Digital-only or something that directly inhabits my ability to buy it and enjoy it without a strong need for fast internet. Because I simply don't have that, nor will I have that this time next year. And I won't be in the minority of this, not even in the slightest. It's all just one of those situations where the devil is in the details, really. Until the 20th, when possibly some of this is elaborated on, we just won't know exactly -what- the future of Playstation will be, but it damn well better include some sort of functionality with the Vita.
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