The waiting game.

The waiting game.

Let me set the scene; I am sat in my apartment in Naples (Italy), it’s five-past midnight and my girlfriend is sat next to me, earphones in listening / watching something on her laptop; there is a lot of noise drifting in through the window from the streets and tightly knit apartment blocks that make up the Materdei district of Naples; the light in our living room is on and as I look at this Word document my eyes are burning up. It might be the newly installed anti-mosquito chemical dispersing plug that is glowing red somewhere in the bedroom, it might be the insanely strong onion that I chopped a few hours ago for lunch, it could be the oddly dim energy saving light-bulb. My eyes are burning up and I could probably say that one of these reasons is true. But I would be lying.

My eyes are burning up because today, like most days these days, I have read every single new word published on the Internet about the next generation of consoles: in particular the PS4.

That’s right. My eyes are melting because I can’t stop reading about the PS4. It’s like an addiction. Today, over early afternoon coffee, I realized that I was still sat where I had sat to drink my early morning coffee. I hadn’t moved other than to clean out the coffee maker and make said new early afternoon coffee. I am a next gen zombie. I may as well be an alcoholic for all the use I am at the moment. I stay up late reading, I wake up early and read and stare into space and read and stare and read and stare until my eyes bleed tired, caffeine infused blood.

And why?

The last generation passed me by. Completely. Sometimes I enjoy reading the comment threads on next gen articles (IGN is best) and read the bilge and vitriol hurled between fan groups whose brand loyalty got a little out of hand in the PS3 XB360 era but I don’t really understand. With the exception of a handful of games (Red Dead and Rayman Origins to name two) I genuinely thought the last generation was pretty bad.

From the very beginning the last generation distanced itself from my traditional gaming ideals. SKU’s? No thanks - the Super NES didn’t need SKU’s. Multi-player games that couldn’t be played with friends in the same room? Fuck that – mid-nineties multi-tap parties ruled. Cooling fans borrowed from government issued, Fujitsu made, shit spec PC’s?  Nope. I already live with quite enough background noise thank you.

These things are perhaps from the sillier end of the spectrum but I do have some serious issues with the last gen.

One issue particularly stands out for me – a perceived lack of direction. To be fair, this can be leveled at Sony more than anyone. Nintendo had their direction sorted; Microsoft had their PC in a box with added achievements but Sony? Well, who knows?  The team that gave us the PS1 and the PS2, two machines that knew what they wanted to be and kicked-ass doing it, gave us the PS3. Sony built an expensive powerhouse that was prepared for any direction future tech might take but with no clear idea of what that might be. In 2006 Facebook picked up where MySpace left off and social networking boomed – people wanted connectivity and personalization; records of achievement to show to their friends in an online community. Cue hardware revisions to remove functionality and reduce costs. Cue endless firmware updates. Cue mandatory trophies for developers. Sony was prepared for everything except this; Microsoft and LIVE had got it right but they missed the boat on Blu-ray, HD, and basic console reliability.

This era also saw a massive change in the economics of, and thus end product of, game development. Costs spiraled, development teams grew exponentially and a risk-averse culture reared its ugly head. Cue FPS shovel ware. That’s right – shovel ware. I see no difference between the endless list of shit Wii titles and the endless list of shit PS3 and 360 titles. Shit is shit. That Syndicate Wars, a brilliant game, was ‘brought up to date’ and released as an FPS sickens me. Still.

So why am I excited about PS4? Why?

Because Sony have got it sussed. Social networking? Tick. Ever improving PSN? Tick. Enlisting indie developers to liven up the games scene? Tick. Name dropping the PS1? Tick.

Big mistakes were made in the last era and it seems that Sony have learned from them. What Sony went through with the PS3 is what Microsoft seems to be going through with XBO now.

Before the PS4 reveal, I had never heard of Mark Cerny but may I take a moment to say well played that man. The PS4 is shaping up to be a huge success à la PS2. The reason? Direction.

So yes. I spend all my time lapping up the articles about the PS4 because I am excited. I am massively impatient to stop reading about it and start playing it.

But right now I should really just go to bed – rest my eyes up for another reading marathon tomorrow; so goodnight everyone.

Keep it focused, keep it OMG.