PS4 Reveal: 3 Guidelines Sony Must Follow To Avoid A Catastrophe
1. Accessibility/User-Friendly Device
If I go into my room, open my closet, and remove the dusty relic I now know as a PlayStation 2, I can turn it on, and it will play my equally dusty copy of Tomb Raider II. Or Tekken 3. Or Einhander. I can go on...
As with most things in the life, the trifles are often overlooked. Although I'm hopeful Sony will be more accommodating to things such as backwards compatibility and ease of access, there's a few trends from the XBOX One reveal I hope Sony absolutely does NOT imitate.
For starters... backwards compatibility. My collection of PlayStation 3 games, both digital and disc-format, numbers easily past twenty (and being at least $60 each... that has been an expensive use of time). I can imagine XBOX 360 owners possessing similarly sized amounts of games, as I'm sure the XBOX 360 library is full of entertainment. However, should you wish to pop in Halo: ODST or feel like going into Horde mode in Gears of War... you won't be able to do so with the XBOX One. Really. Now, this is due to the new hardware within the machine, and the PS4 will have a similar issue. However, a PlayStation Plus subscription (which is a premium alternative to regular online play - PlayStation generously doesn't charge users just for online capabilities) allows users to easily have access to several older titles for free, or generous discounts, in addition to the freebies and discounts already available to regular account holders. Since the PlayStation Store's library will be preserved onto the next system, backwards compatibility will largely be addressed with the content in the PS Store that already exists. And whereas the PS+ subscription to access the full extent of the discounts is an optional charge, you have to pay for XBOX live whether you want to or not - thus for Sony users, backwards compatibility is what you make of it.
Another gripe raised by Microsoft is the online-connectivity issue - in order to perform offline functions on an XBOX One, you will need to sign-in with it once per day. Again, this is a valid statement... that has since been amended slightly. And that itself was an amendment from the fear that the XBOX One would need a constant 24/7 connection just to perform basic functions. These two faux-pas are among a myriad of concerns Microsoft has raised with its less-than-stellar debut of their product - the smaller emphasis on gaming capabilities aside, Microsoft hasn't made any friends by introducing features and peripherals that make a game harder to operate.
Sony, I'm done. This is all I have. Unless some massive cataclysmic event occurs, I don't foresee anyway possible that I WON'T own the PS4 come November, however I, like a large audience of Sony faithful, am merely expressing a guarded optimism that you won't terrify us at E3.
Please make good on that.