I honestly have no clue what Sony and their fans are doing anymore. I mean, they honestly don’t get it. Sony doesn’t get their customers. We know this by now and it’s not even debatable. It’s not just the company though as the PlayStation 4 users are largely to blame as well. I play PlayStation 4 games and like a lot of them. This is a warning to gamers about where the industry is headed due to corporate greed.
This past week we learned through Giant Bomb that Sony and the rumored PlayStation 4K, code-named Neo from The Matrix, is real. Later on the same day Eurogamer reported that development kits had already gone out to many studios. Of course, upgrading your console alone isn’t bad. The manner in which Sony is conducting this upgrade, however, is a complete sham and to be honest, completely ridiculous.
Sony launched the PlayStation 4 on November 15, 2013. The PlayStation 4 is still not two and a half years old. By all accounts so far, the PlayStation 4 is beating the Xbox One in sales. No one is debating this. After all, the PlayStation 4 has in fact sold nearly double the amount of consoles compared to Xbox One at about forty million to twenty million. That’s one part of the puzzle though. Final sales aren’t the only comparison. The PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360 in overall sales, but the Xbox 360 was a much better system, and also outsold the PlayStation 3 for 42 straight months leading up to the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Xbox 360 launched a year earlier as well. Sony has always had an advantage in marketing compared to other companies, which is why they are doing what they are doing with disregard to their customers.
Let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we? We’re all mostly adults here. We can admit that this new PlayStation 4K, PlayStation Neo or whatever the final name ends up being, is a complete and utter cash grab by Sony. They are clearly using their top market position as an advantage to extract more money from their existing customers. It makes me angry that Sony obviously doesn’t care about their customers. It makes me angry even more that PlayStation 4 users don’t care they are being taken advantage of. I’ve said this a thousand times. I don’t care what console you play. We all play games and that’s all that counts. Don’t you care that a company is trying to take money they don’t need out of your pocket by taking advantage of you? You should. Let’s look at the details, shall we?
According to leaked documents, this PlayStation Neo will include an upgraded GPU, CPU and memory storage allowing for 4K graphical output. Of course, you need a 4K TV in order to achieve 4K graphical output. Now, most people don’t own 4K sets at this point. In fact, rough estimates have only about 10% of current homes equipped with a 4K TV according to Business Insider. So, obviously it’s a horribly misguided attempt on Sony’s part to sell their own 4K TVs. You know it. You know that once this new console is released, that within a month there will be sales at Best Buy for a Sony 4K TV bundled with the new console. I’m all for companies making money. This is America and we’re a capitalistic society. That’s perfectly fine. I’ve said this before. I admire intelligence. On the other hand, don’t try and outsmart me by thinking that I’m too simple to figure out what you are doing. This is exactly what Sony is doing and it should anger every single person that currently owns a regular PlayStation 4.
This new system is also not allowed to offer anything exclusive when compared to the standard PlayStation 4. They will be required to use the same PlayStation Store, all your existing purchases would carry over and there will be absolutely zero games exclusive to the new device. You will not be able to play on a server with only PlayStation Neo players. You will not have any exclusive features, preorder bonuses or unlockables on the PlayStation Neo. For those of you excited about PlayStation VR, this also doesn’t apply because Sony is requiring parity on all peripheral items such as PlayStation Move and PlayStation VR.
Yes, the internals are upgraded compared to the current PlayStation 4. They are very slight though. Looking at them side by side, it’s obvious that any benefit won’t be visible with the naked eye. But hey, it’s Sony so it’s all marketing. The PlayStation 4 was marketed as “superior” prior to launch because it can run 1080p more than the Xbox One which would hit 900p more often than not. This was clearly overblown because it is literally physically impossible to tell the difference between 900p and 1080p with the naked eye. Even 720p with exceptional anti-aliasing is damn near impossible to see compared to 1080p. Yet not only two and a half years later we’re back to square one with 4K resolution. So, the $64,000 question is this: if this new PlayStation Neo can’t have exclusive games, features, preorder bonuses, unlockables, peripheral features, uses the same online network, costs $100 more than the current system…what’s the point of making this system? Who the Hell is it for? If it took you longer than a single second to answer “Sony” then you are kidding yourself. Either that or you just don’t care.
They’re trying to maintain a sense of balance between current PlayStation 4 owners and those who may get this console, right? Let’s go with that. This is why it won’t have any exclusive features whatsoever as mentioned earlier. So, why even sell it if it doesn’t have any exclusive features? With no features, not many people are going to buy it. As a result, are the minimal amount of increased sales you would receive for your 4K TVs worth alienating the forty million or so people that have been steadfast in their devotion to your console for the last two and a half years? I can’t believe I actually have to ask this question.
I’m sure the PlayStation 5 will release in a few years. There isn’t going to be a TV higher than 4K at that point. Even if there is, the console isn’t going to support it. 4K TVs were available when the PS4 and Xbox One launched but they were too new for console support. This will be the same for the PlayStation 5 if they are even available. As a result, why try and alienate your console base now? Why not just wait and have Andrew House come out at E3 2019 and drop the mic with a mega announcement about the shiny, new features of the PlayStation 5?
All Microsoft has to do now is sit back, drink in hand, and watch the chips fall. Not only is this going to anger existing PlayStation 4 users, alienate its base and charge them around $400 for literally no exclusive features, but it also allows Microsoft to make a bigger jump to their next console than Sony will be able to do with PlayStation 5. As we saw with the launch of these consoles and how marketing has given the PlayStation 4 an insurmountable lead over Xbox One, this new console will basically hand the next generation of console sales to Microsoft. All Microsoft has to do is say “Hey look, we improved our console more than Sony. See! Here’s the proof.” and boom, better sales.
There is just no target demographic for this move and all of the details contained in it contradict each other. It still boggles my mind how a company that has such a great console can make decisions like this along with the horrible PlayStation 2 emulation and pricing. Will this make the PlayStation 4 lose its lead over the Xbox One? Of course not. Now, some may say then “Who cares?”. I’d answer that by saying you should care. You should care that a company you have supported by buying their console, playing their games and banging the table about how your console is so much better than the competition is trying to take advantage of you. Whether or not you buy the console doesn’t matter.
Now comes the most troubling part of all this. While I hope Microsoft doesn’t follow Sony, no one would blame them if they did though. Since the launch of the console, Microsoft has been criticized for making a piece of hardware that is, as many gaming outlets and YouTubers put it, “vastly underpowered compared to the competition”. Microsoft has a history of listening to its fans and that might be the company’s biggest downfall. As stated above, the company keeps on getting blasted in the media for having titles that run at 900p or having a variable resolution that doesn’t always stick to 1080p. Given how severe of an issue this is in the eyes of many gamers, Microsoft just might announce an upgraded Xbox One at E3 this year. This would be disastrous for the gaming industry and for consumers.
Developers have finally started to get the hang of making games for the consoles. Just like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it takes years to truly master the systems. Disrupting that now would be disastrous for a lot of game developers who are used to long console generations. This would basically make their games seem second best when it came to the device they were on. Additionally, it would adversely affect sales of many titles because many would be criticized for not updating visuals to support consoles like the rumored PlayStation Neo. It would also require a lot of time, effort and resources to do so that as many game developers, especially smaller companies, don’t have.
Consoles are meant to last. If spending hundreds of dollars on each device every few years was a viable option for many gamers out there, many more would look into Windows gaming. That offers the best graphics and software by far. Consoles cater to a market that likes to build extensive libraries, have devices that they won’t have to upgrade every few years, and want to see evolve with software updates. The reason I bought a console was for the promise that I would get a great experience that I wouldn’t have to worry about spending hundreds of dollars on for the next many years. Wasn’t that the original plan that Microsoft and Sony had? To make devices they would support for “ten years”?
Sony’s decision to release a PlayStation Neo will disrupt the console market and make it easy for companies in the top position to do what they want. It goes against the whole principle of consoles and in my opinion and is a shameful greedy move by the company who is clearly abusing its position right now. The only advice I would give Microsoft would be to wait for Sony to do this and at next year’s E3 conference just release the next console from Microsoft that doesn’t try to catch up to the competition, but surpasses it on every level imaginable. Make sure it has backward compatibility with Xbox 360 and Xbox One games. Market it as a proper console generation rather than an unnecessary cash grab. If you do that, you will win customer support and sales. However, if you follow Sony in a move that is already being lambasted by developers and gamers, you risk being seen as second best and not the market leaders. Please take a stand against this practice because a lot of us don’t have the resources to spend hundreds of dollars ever few years on devices when mobile phone makers are already gouging us on that front. Stand up to this unfair practice implemented by Sony. Take a stand. It’s better to wait and start a new generation.
The opinions expressed in this article belong to the writers alone and do not necessarily represent the views of ICXM.net as an organization.
Asher and Michael is a shared byline ICXM used for 1 article co-authored in 2016 covering Xbox news. See the individual contributor profiles for the writers behind these collaborations.