With some really interesting ideas, Sony looks to be an even bigger player in the next generation.
There are some critical questions that will have to be answered over time, however. The first being the automatic downloads that the Playstation Store will do in an attempt to recommend games to you. How often will the PS4 download games it believes you'd want to buy? And how will it be stored on the system? It could be rather cumbersome for people to have to constantly check their hard drive to see a bunch of downloaded games and delete the ones that they don't want. And if the store will download a lot of games, it will be more of a pain. It is possible that those games will be temporary files on the system that will only hold onto the hard drive for a few days. Also, Sony stated that when downloading games, you only need to download a portion of it to start playing, and then the system will download the rest in the background. They could opt to download that portion of the game needed to play, and the rest will download when you start up.
Another big question surrounding their system lies in whether or not the infrastructure in place will be able to do all of the streaming and cloud gaming to the extent that it runs smoothly. From what it sounds like, the PS4 will require a good amount of bandwidth and solid connection speeds to handle all of the tasks at hand, but as we all have learned by now, the internet has lots of variables in place. From the providers available to one area to the location of DNS servers, internet connection and speeds vary greatly. I imagine that Sony has taken this into consideration when developing the PS4, but it still sounds like a bit too much of online activity on one console. I could be wrong. There is plenty of time before the PS4 hits shelves to iron out the kinks and set it so that it can run smoothly in the average household, but I wouldn't be surprised if that will take a good amount of time after the console's launch.
And lastly, I won't really delve into the games that were shown at the meeting because I've always felt that the burden falls on the developers in making the games and not the platform holders. Whereas I would hold Sony accountable a bit on the PS3 for using much different technology, that won't necessarily apply in the case of the PS4. We can all expect great first and third-party games to come out for all of the platforms. That's how it's been throughout video game history, and I don't really see that changing at all with the next generation.
Sony has set forth some lofty ideals that they hope to accomplish with the PS4, ones that could make for a great console and future for the industry. But nothing has been substantiated, not even to the point that we can get a glimpse of how all of these features will actually work on the PS4. All we can do is cross our fingers, wishing that Sony makes good on their word because if they do, they will have a really nice piece of hardware to buy come the holiday season.
