Sony revealed last evening at their E3 press conference the long awaited “look” and specifics of the highly anticipated Playstation 4. With a launch expected sometime in November, and a low retail price of $399, the new console shows great potential for holiday season 2013/14.
In an apparent bid to under-cut Microsoft’s Xbox One launch in the US, Sony theoretically chops MS sales numbers by a bunch in taking off a hundred bucks from the family budget here. Add in other strategic “jabs” like Sony unrestricting used game selling and trading, among other “key” positioning moves, and Sony Playstation 4 futures just went up with the current press.
What’s more, PS4 game play will not require online authentication like Microsoft users are burdened with. This one aspect, may be a dagger in the heart of true Xbox One believers, given we know something about how gamers prefer to roll. After all, there’s nothing worse for a die hard first person shooting addict than having to waste time updating, chit-chatting, or anything else but zombie wasting.
As for the look and feel of the new console, most experts agree the Playstation 4 is uncannily like the Xbox One. Jet black on the outside, the Sony unit to come has some distinguishing features of its own including:
- Processor: Eight Jaguar core AMD chip with a Radeon graphics processor
- Ram: 8GB of fast GDDR5
- Drives: 6x Blu-ray drive, plus the built-in 500GB hard drive
- Controllers: The new DualShock 4 controller
- Peripherals: Touch sensitive dual shocks, The PlayStation 4 Eye peripheral (cameras and mic array), and more.
Bigger news than even the coming release of this console is Sony’s unexpectedly aggressive moves with the new PlayStation4. With hard core game enthusiasts teetering in the balance of revenue win, one has to wonder why Microsoft has take such a hard line on game rentals etc.? This could be the “straw” that Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai’s forward momentum needs at this end of his corporation’s electronics redux. Let’s see what MS comes up with to counter.
