A quick recap and comparison of the conferences and consoles…
Microsoft’s long awaited next-generation console has been finally announced and the Xbox One made it clear what it wanted to do. The new “all-in-one” console, if we can call it one anymore, is conquering new territories and Microsoft’s manifest destiny mentality puts them in the position to take over the living room completely.
On the other hand, Sony took the first step onto next-gen soil in February when they announced the PlayStation 4 and the message was clear; hardcore gaming whenever, wherever.
The difference in the two juggernauts thought process for the market could not be more different; Sony wants the hardcore gamer and Microsoft wants, well, everybody.
The Xbox One reveal may leave many scratching their head at why games weren’t even mentioned for the first 35 minutes, but from the get-go we knew this wasn’t devoted to gaming.
The press conference first countered Sony’s lack of box and immediately showed the world what they believed the future to be like and what a future it could be.
Admittedly the voice and movement control features are intriguing and reminiscent of Minority Report, but how far will acting out your TV remote and interacting with your favorite shows and sports take a gaming console?
Microsoft realized what it’s strengths were with their gaming community and is set to support them with an increase of 15,000 servers to 300,000 servers devoted to online gameplay.
Putting money on a booming online ecosystem is a good bet for Microsoft with it’s current console, but will the lack of devotion to games turn players away? Polarized couldn’t be a better word when describing Xbox fans today.
That’s where Sony plans to swoop in with a console built upon the ideals of ‘gaming, for the gamer, by the gamer’. Without requirements like an always connected Kinect to operate, the PS4, while lacking in features compared to the Xbox One, was solely developed to play games on a powerful and committed machine.
Although E3 may stand as the event where the Xbox One finally shows it’s gaming side and potentially one of the fifteen exclusive titles or eight new IP’s, but as it stands now I have concerns –such as who are they going to market this to?– and in my mind the games aspect of the next-generation undoubtedly belongs to Sony and the PS4.
