One year ago, Sony kicked off their vision of the next generation of gaming in style with the PlayStation 4. They had amazing hype going into it thanks to the design of the machine, which was centered on gamers and gaming, with an easy to develop for architecture, and, perhaps most importantly, a cheap machine overall that was also the most powerful one. And thanks to the PR blunders of Nintendo and Microsoft, they also had great goodwill.
That goodwill carried them through the first year, because let’s face it, as far as games go, the PS4’s first year on the market has been anemic- true, it got the superior version of all multiplats that it did get, but the multiplats in question were games like Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed Unity, and Destiny- mediocre games by any standard. Meanwhile, Sony’s own first party support greatly flagged, with DriveClub’s launch being a monumental disaster, inFamous: Second Son just dwindling away into nothingness, and the highlight of the year being a remastered port of last year’s hit PS3 game, The Last of Us.
No matter how dire things seem to us when put that way, however, the public seems to have embraced the PS4, and in the end, that’s what matters. Plus, next year looks unusually good for Sony’s console, thanks to games such as Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, and Persona 5 being lined up.
Happy first birthday, PS4. Here’s to many more.