Fans and Media Reflect on the PS4's PlayStation Meeting a Decade Later

All I remember from that event was the crazed look of evil genius Mark Cerny.
It looked like he didn’t sleep for a week & then downed a litre of Red Bull when he was told it’s game time.

Andy Robinson was wrong though. It absolutely wasn't Sony at the peak of its power, as it was coming out of a difficult console generation for them. It was through the sheer creativity of all of its software developers, that were pumping out good quality games to make up for all the blunders that Sony made with the PS3, that that console generation didn't end up being the death knell for PlayStation. And thus we could say that Sony at that point was certainly re-ascending (let's not forget the absolute domination that the PS2 era was), but was most definitely not at its peak.

@Bionic-Spencer That was E3 2013. This was a different conference six months before.

@LiamCroft cheers! I had my e3 glasses on there!! 😂😂

I really miss the excitement and openness of Playstation back then. Mark Cerny gave us insight into the design philosophy of PS4 and we same awesome games. I truly miss these types of big gaming events. This Playstation Meeting and the 2014 PSX event are some of the best in gaming imo.

I mainly remember their burn to Microsoft with the 'Used Game Instructional Video' after Xbox had tried to over complicate things with their DRM!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA

@Bentleyma The fact that 80% of new games are still coming out on the old stager just points to its longevity and being a modern capable piece of kit.
And yes, its UI (which, granted, evolved over its life) still kicks the PS5 UI into the weeds.

I remember seeing some of this at the time, and a lot of things that fixed issues in the PS3 era, including the PS4's download in the background chip.
To be honest, after Microsoft's E3 presentation, Sony could've just turned up, announced the price and then dropped the mic.

I remember that day.i was chilling and have my food ready to watch the ps4 meeting.good times.word up son

If it’s the show I’m thinking of all I can really remember is mM’s 5 minutes of marionette puppet making where 3 different people said “build your dreams” but nobody actually named the game “Dreams” so when Dreams finally released in “early access” about 7 years later people would be arguing if it took Dreams 7 years to release from this show or only 5 years from the time they actually named it.

And after typing all that I hope it was that show.😂

Edit 1: Found my response to the show, it’s hilarious. I’m playing Destiny 2 now and I still call it “Sphere”, didn’t realize it was that show.

“5 rjejr Thu 21st Feb 2013

I still think it's funny that to branch out from their FPS shooter about a halo Bungie made a FPS about a sphere. I'ld bet anything "Sphere" was the working title.

@Trikeboy - Did you watch the live presentation? The PS4 isn't about graphics. The PS4 is about uploading your videos and having your friends take control of your game and remote playing your games on your Vita. Sony showed off Knack to start b/c that is more about physics and fun than graphics. Sony was smart, nobody is paying for graphical improvements after Uncharted, KZ and GoW on the PS3, but they might pay to make their every gaming victory instantaneously streamed on Facebook and Twitter and have their friends watching live.

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg bought Sony while nobody was watching?”

Edit 2: My actual 1st response to the show, which makes little sense, though I did kind of predict PS+ would be required.

“No love for Blizzard

Not showing the console was a good idea, now they have something to promote for E3.

If the console is $400 it will require PS+ or Gold or something, too much nonstop bandwidth.

Yes, Witness is 3D Myst.”

@sanderson72 I think the PS5 is Sony's worst console to date for the reasons you state. The PS1 could not handle PS2 games. The PS2 could not handle PS3 games etc.
We shouldnt be this far into the console generation and see so little from the PS5.

The E3 that followed this presentation was the reason why I moved over from Xbox and went to the PlayStation brand almost exclusively. After getting the 100% on Gears of War 3 and getting disillusioned in the direction that Microsoft was heading, I needed a change. I watch the 2013 conference now and again to see Sony really come out fighting after Microsoft’s worst showing in years! Microsoft basically did the same as what Sony did after the PS2 era. They thought they were invincible and could do whatever they wanted and gamers would allow it.

@Shepherd_Tallon I got my PS3 first, the 360 a bit later for Alan Wake mainly but I was using the 360 for the party chat option first and foremost. Don't get me wrong, I liked Gears, Fable and such but I never fell in love with any of those games as opposed to Uncharted 2, Resistance, Heavy Rain etc.. A lot of PlayStation games simply have that little (or big) extra for me that sets them apart from the rest.

I don’t know if I would call it Sony at the peak of their power. If anything, it was a hard reset from the PS3 era, with the Lessons Learned obvious. 1) Don’t let your competition have a year’s head start and 2) Keep It Simple Stupid. And it paid off, with A LOT of help from Microsoft’s TV! TV! TV! KINECT! KINECT! KINECT! positioning…something Microsoft hasn’t been able to overcome since (plus their meager games lineup over the last 10 years hasn’t helped).

I miss this era. I was at that time equally PS3 and 360, still in love with WiiU (heh), but mostly playing on 3DS and Vita if I'm honest. But set aside a whole night to watch that presentation and it still feels like it was just yesterday. Was tepidly hyped after that but the show was so great. Went into E3 period having no idea what MS was going to do, on the fence, able to be swung to anyone's court. Needless to say I'd order 2 PS4's before the end of the PS show.

I miss this show, the big E3 "this is how you share" show. The following E3, Year of Dreams with the stadium show, and the GoW orchestra show the following year. This was when Sony was fun to follow as a fan rather than just a product you buy as a consumer. Not so much, these days.

Though I'll forever remember this particular show as the show we saw the Watch_Dogs that never was, when Ubi cheated the whole thing with PC footage.

I came from XB360 in the previous gen. After watching both conferences, my wife remarked - quite rare of her to humour me and watch this sort of thing with me, but she did so there you go - that "Xbox didn't have much on the games". I thought I would stick with XB for the last gen, but her unprompted non-gamer remark made me reconsider. Glad I switched horses and became a Sony Pony, I'd have missed many great exclusives had I not done so.

@LifeGirl

Changing nature of development. Games take much longer to develop now than they did back during previous transitions.

It’s the era of diminishing returns. Look at the PC space.

That’s why the focus for the PS5 and Xbox Series was on refining what was already there. The only hardware that offers a true generation jump is the RTX 4090, a graphics card that can’t even be used to its full potential due to CPU bottlenecks and engine limitations. And it’s 2000 dollars.

The PS5 is a significantly better PS4. It fixes all of the long-standing issues the 8th Gen consoles had, namely low bandwidth and a gimped CPU.

But it was never going to be a quantum shift like the PS1 was to the PS2. Those days are over due to both diminishing visual returns and development cycles. Basically the software isn’t keeping up with the hardware.

@OrtadragoonX "Basically the software isn’t keeping up with the hardware."

There's some truth in that, but it's also a bit unfair. There were amazing-looking games back on the PS3, that were good enough that the extra horsepower of the PS5 today make impressive improvements - but not revolutionary improvements. The Last of Us seems to be the prime example - pull out the PS3 version and compare it to the newest remake, and you'll definitely see improvements, but I suspect most people won't consider them as revolutionary as that leap from PS1 to PS2 that you're talking about. We may never see a leap quite that huge ever again, unless quantum computing becomes a reality and can do something surprising/amazing.

And that's just the reality of the law of diminishing returns. It absolutely doesn't help that nobody is developing games only for that RTX 4090 you mentioned - not when they have to make sure their cross-platform title runs on the Series S, as well as on whatever PC looks more like a PS4 than an RTX 4090-powered beast. But they can't survive if they can only sell games to people who own an RTX 4090 - heck, at this date, they're only starting to drop support for the PS4 generation.

Haha i remember this. It was bloody brilliant. And the frothing in the mouth loads of people had over not seeing the box was even better. I remember being so excited for PS4 and desperate to get one.

For what its worth, i still think PS4 was Playstation's most attractive console, even if the design was not conducive to blindly plugging in the cables blind in my media centre

@Rob_230

The PS4 Phat is the prettiest console ever made in my opinion.

It looked like it costed 2000 dollars. Even though it was only 400.

The PS4 Slim and Pro both ruined the design language.

Good conference from what I remember, eh generation wasn't a generation of PS I cared about really. PSVR and folders good, everything else 2016+ was eh besides very few titles the new direction killed my interest in the brand. Most disappointing use of the touchpad/gyro this gen too barely used first party and AA/third parties delivered on games for me this gen.

Besides I miss the old 2013 Xbox One dashboard (the Xbox One console is 'ok' I used it less than my PS4 but still used my PS3 more and Vita/Wii U caught up since 2018 of consoles I want to use).

Ah I loved Andrew House, and all the guys from that era. I specifically miss this type of conference compared to the State of Plays theses days.