Nerdology

Obviously the biggest news from Sony’s PS4 announcement was that they never actually showed their new console. Fine. But what about what they did show.  Now that we’re more than 18 hours removed from the conference, and I’ve watched it again, I think I can wade through all the noise. Ready? Ok.

First, I don’t care how many developers Sony had on stage or which games they were showing off. The console isn’t out yet, so we have absolutely no idea what the games will look like, or what the hardware is actually capable of (yes we have specs but specs don’t mean anything).

We don’t know what it will look like, but we know what it will feel like.

Right at the top of the show, not 5 minutes in, Andrew House said:

“The living room is no longer the center of the playstation ecosystem, the gamer is.… With mobility and the ability to share content and experiences becoming an increasingly important part of the gaming experience, connectivity between devices and the ease with which they connect has been essential to meeting the demands of today’s casual or core gamer.”

While we didn’t see what the box looks like, Sony did show us a new controller. They’re calling it the DualShock 4 and it looks like a DualShock 3 with an added touchpad along the top.

But forget the touchpad for a second, the most interesting part of the new controller is a share button. Yes, nestled right in between the D-pad and the touchpad is a button labeled ‘share.’ The share button can capture the video on your screen and broadcast what you’re doing to your friends. They’ve baked in live streaming capabilities via UStream.

They also alluded to the PS4 hooking into existing social networks to enhance your experience. I can imagine something like starting a live broadcast and tweeting the link. Or making a Facebook post of a video you’ve recorded.

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