PS4 Shortcomings

As nice as all the shiny new hardware is, and I am happy that the specs are as nice as they are, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of us are disappointed with the results. It's not because they're similar to a high end machine today it's because they weren't futuristic enough. Where's the solid state drive? Where's the display port capable of running 2560, or even 4k with a full 3d at 120hz, even if displays can't handle it today the graphics cards can and we do expect to be gaming with this for the foreseeable future. Why don't we have the newest standard of wifi which is faster and stronger capable of greater ranges? Why not include the 10gb/s ethernet capability given that cat 6 cable isn't exactly hard to come by and internet speeds are in fact increasing?

For those of you not in the know, HDMI so far is incapable of handling 2560 properly let alone at 120hz meanwhile the displayport which is royalty free is capable of handling it with ease.

Simply put new console hardware takes time, usually 4 years from concept through production which means that in this particular case the designs are already feeling their age given how much has changed in just the last year or two. That's not to say the changes should have been simply ignored though as they had a respectable amount of time to include some very basic components and I for one consider it negligent on their behalf to not consider how the console will behave and be received when it came out knowing what the industry would be like to some extent. Clearly this generation was not designed with longevity in mind, I'd wager to say they'll start designing replacements within a year and this generation of consoles will likely have a very short 5 year life span. I really hope I don't end up eating my words on that last one because they really haven't impressed me and considering another 7 year lifecycle on these consoles just sounds painful.

It sounds like they're trying to do something innovative which I will give them credit for by going for personalization, streaming, vita capabilities with tie in, and all the other goodies they're so proud of, but at the same time I doubt it'll be enough to really set it apart in the long run in a manner that will demand market share. That's what it comes down to in reality is you want a console so awesome even pc gamers look at it and go "I want one" to the extent that people are more than happy to wait 3 days in line for it with their camping gear and have the large number of great exclusives that nobody considers jumping ship, when you have more than 20% of the market dedicated exclusively to your brand you can accomplish a lot and I just don't see that happening with sony. Instead I see this being a shameful split again with even distribution across the board and a lot of people grabbing both consoles at some point, just not really compelling the move into next gen. I'll be happy to sit with my ps3 for a couple extra years and play catch up down the road. Maybe I'll get lucky and by the time I consider picking it up the next will be announced and I'll just grab a few games in the hope they're backwards compatible on the new machines and do it that way.

Speaking of which I'm happy to hear they plan on using their streaming service to solve backward compatibility as that is a big item for me. While it may be true that I don't go back and play really old games that often the fact that I can when I do want to is important as I like to keep my classics, in particular my gaming gems. I was particularly upset by my restriction from playing mgs3, ico, shadow of the colossus, etc more so when I could still play any given ps1 game including those ancient gamesharks without a single problem. I'm interested to see how xbox handles this same problem as honestly Halo is probably the only original xbox title I still have other than maybe morrowind which I have both on the pc, an arcade version and the anniversary edition of halo and yet I do have quite the substantial 360 collection which I would be more than a little cheesed at if I found out I couldn't play any of it on the next xbox or if I found out all my xbla purchases were suddenly worthless.

In the end no amount of griping will really change any of these shortcomings and so as disappointed as I may be with this gen I at least have hope for the future, the future in which sony finally changes their annoying little controller to something more worthy of being in my big hands for hours at a time, honestly why couldn't they just offer me the nice option of changing the shell to an xbox one instead of making me have to void the warranty by doing it myself, because if I ever grab one that's the first thing I'm doing.

Edit:
turns out ps4 will supposedly support 4k, maybe with a new hdmi 2.0 standard?, still I have my reservations on if it's a proper 4k or the bare minimum and to what extend it'll actually be used.