Very cool thread. Yes the PS4 looks to be a well thought out, game centric, and developer friendly system. Sony as a company made some poor choices in the past and even after changing, say back in 2009, they have been haunted by them ever since. They were shackled to the PS3, having to make their money back, needing to wait for an opportunity to launch new hardware. A lot of sweat and tears went into repairing their image and developing ways to make games run on the system.
It has been a rough ride of corporate change and industry pressure, but Sony has for years now done a very good job with the mess they made. Unfortunately those mistakes have gave way for their competition, competition with different goals, different values, and different policies when it comes to gaming. It is apparent to everyone now that they are going forward, really concentrating on the industry, and allowing creativity to live.
A shame the market doesn't realize this. Looking at the Vita, a system designed in a similar way, has had a hard time penetrating the market. Despite developer love, not all developers are interesting in the handheld gaming space. The sales are scarring some off, but I think the Vita didn't get as much early dev time as they are giving the PS4. We might be quite surprised by the immediate developer support and how long they have been preparing their games in the background. With only the poorly conceived PS3 to partner with, the Vita had a hard time making a splash, but with the PS4 being designed with it in mind and the brilliant frontier Gaikai is bringing, Sony's modern products will make more noise.
I'm really looking forward to the PS4. While the PS3 was my console of choice this gen and it was capable of amazing games, it held itself back in a lot of regards. This time around is different and Sony's reputation and respect for developers will result in an awesome generation. I think developers have been waiting for this system for a long time. The sidelines might not be apparent to most consumers and it is hard for them to look past glaring mistakes, but Sony is dev friendly and that is important to what this industry is about. Now with the PS4, Sony can prove it.
Before the PS3 everyone was nice to me :(
