During the last few weeks it has become public knowledge that the current era of gaming consoles will soon be coming to an end and that we're at the doorstep of a brand new generation. There had been whispers going around for a while now regarding a new Sony console, but these became concrete knowledge thanks to a tweet by the PlayStation account that linked to a Mark Cerny interview on wired.com, where he discussed in full detail what this new piece of hardware hopes to achieve over its predecessor, the PS4.
This feels like a rather normal evolution of things, considering the PS4 has had its time in the limelight yet things are now beginning to quiet down when it comes to development of new titles. Even lots of third-party studios have gone radio-silent for a while now and there isn't much to anticipate as most games have already been released or are on the cusp of being pushed out the door. So not a lot remains after that.
At this point, all PS4 fans have to look forward to are Final Fantasy VII Remake, The Last Of Us II and Death Stranding. Oh, and maybe Shenmue III, depending on what it looks like. That's it. 3-4 games to support the life of the console. Hopefully it'll prove enough to push it into breaking that unreachable 100 million sales barrier that is currently held by the PS2.
But other than that, there isn't really much else to look forward to when it comes to the PS4, so anyone could easily tell that the people at Sony Worldwide Studios had already begun to plan their next move for a while now. They strategically chose to sacrifice this year's E3 (and perhaps even last year's PlayStation Xperience) in order to plan for something much bigger in the long run. Cerny's interview is only laying the foundation for greater things to come in the near future.
Yet at this point, with the PS4 already pushing the boundaries between graphical fidelity and what the human eye can see in real life so close together (and the PS4 Pro going even one step further with its 4K resolutions), what else can this new machine hope to achieve? Well, according to Cerny, it seems this time around, their main concern is not really all about graphics but how they can maintain the feeling of player immersion by greatly reducing loading times.
(Going into more specifics here so don't worry if you get lost in the terminology...) By creating a more powerful CPU that can read more information in a shorter amount of time, the game won't need to drag out loading times as much as the PS4 does. Which means players will no longer be left feeling like they've forgotten what they just saw or start playing with their phones and going on social media until they can actually move on to the game. It'll all be one seamless experience. Non-stop action.
That isn't to say that there won't be a graphical upgrade at all, with the term "8K" now coming into the picture. But that only stands for anyone who can actually afford a TV with an 8K display, which, to be honest, right now seems unreachable for a medium income household.
All this is fine and well, but just as with the previous generation (and the one before that), there is still a ton of information that people need to think about before actually investing in this new piece of equipment, as fancy as it already sounds. Number one, of course, is pricing. Sony seemed to learn a lot from their experience with the launch of the PS3, that was retailed with a $500 opening price tag and have since become more flexible, launching the PS4 at just $400. This could be credited as one of the major factors that lead the to great success over Microsoft in November 2013 when both machines (PS4 and Xbox One) were given out to the public, but also to the long-term sustainability in sales of the console. It's at an approachable price. I myself have bought three PS4s.
Yet another issue to think about is if it'll even be worth buying this new machine at all. As we have witnessed more than once, no matter how powerful a piece of hardware is and how many other things it can do, if it doesn't serve its main function, then there's no real purpose in buying it. This is supposed to be a gaming console, ergo it needs to have great games. Now to their credit, Sony did have the best games (bar Super Mario Odyssey and Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild) during this current generation, but it's still important to see whether there'll be anything of value during launch.
I still remember a lot of people purchasing the PS4 in its early days, only to play... Knack or Killzone: Shadow Fall. Is that really why you just wasted $400? Just give it a bit of breathing space and wait for the good stuff to come out. And wait to see if it'll actually be good stuff, because you never know. The sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn (which we all know will be coming out on Sony's next console) might end up being awful. Why would you want to take that risk?
Finally, and this is something I am really worried about, is the emphasis on VR (virtual reality). It seems like it practically came out of nowhere, like some CEO began shouting in a board meeting one day "okay, we're going with this. This is going to be the thing of the future and we need to get everyone on board with it." I never recall anybody asking for VR, yet for some odd reason, Sony (among others) are heavily marketing toward it, like they someday hope to get everyone to forget about gaming in the way it is today and just wear those goggles. I dread to think of a dystopian future where all everyone does for entertainment is just hide inside those things... Get them out!
All in all, as we slowly begin to write the final chapters on what was an amazing eighth generation of gaming, we look towards the future with a cautious optimism, yet maintain a bit of skepticism for how things will progress. How much further can gaming be pushed? What other great experiences can we look forward to? What will these new consoles even be called? Guess we'll just have to wait and see!
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