Here’s Why The PlayStation 4 Needs To Step Up Its Game

Sony’s PlayStation 4 has been a trailblazing success story this generation, shipping a whopping 47.4 million units as of September 30th, 2016. It’s well on its way to becoming one of the biggest selling consoles of all-time and deservedly so, with a robust library of great games, extensive online functionality, developer friendly hardware and a welcome focus that puts the gamer at the centre of the experience. Out of the gate, Sony has done a ton of things right, for both consumers and developers alike. However, it feels to me that the PS4 is beginning to hit turbulent waters. The console's biggest competitor, Microsoft's Xbox One, has outsold the PS4 for three months in a row now, thanks in-part to the newly launched Xbox One S, a smaller more powerful version of the Xbox One that boasts a 4K Blu-ray player and 4K video streaming. It's been a smart move by Microsoft, as feature-wise it does feel like a nice step forward for their console, particularly in regards to its 4K Blu-ray functionality, which even the newly released, super-powered PS4 Pro curiously lacks. Taking all of that into account, it definitely feels as if Sony's pride and joy is starting to get a little lost at sea, and here's why. Oversaturation On The PSN Since the early PS3 days, the PSN has been a beacon for top-notch games and a seal of quality for smaller, bite-sized downloadable titles. Heading into this new generation, Sony had prudently and painstakingly built up a thriving ecosystem of unique, experimental, art-house games that helped to buck the triple-A trend, empower smaller scale developers and give a spotlight to independently developed titles. Smaller games such as Super Stardust HD, Flow, Flower, Journey, Rain and Hotline Miami, to name but a few, all made their debut on the PS3 with a fair amount of critical acclaim and commercial success, and over time the PSN soon built up a reputation for being the ideal home for some truly outstanding experiential indies. Now don’t get me wrong, for the most part, the PS4 has emulated its predecessor’s indie-centric path and it’s emulated it well. We’ve seen fantastic indie games on PS4; Resogun, Downwell, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, Darkest Dungeon and Crypt of the Necrodancer all highlight the power of the burgeoning indie scene and simultaneously help to give the console a unique and special identity. However, in my opinion, PS4 has chosen a far more unrestrictive, quantity over quality, shotgun-style approach in comparison to the PS3. You just need to look at the weekly PSN Blog to see that there's a staggering swathe of smaller titles that flood the PSN store with regularity, and because of this it’s becoming exponentially more difficult to weed out the great games from the not so great games. One title that stands out for me is Solbrain: Knight of Darkness. The game is the antithesis of shovelware and was absolutely lambasted for being built with stolen assets. It's a deplorable, heinous game and it totally boggles my mind as to why something this downright abhorrent was greenlit by Sony - how the heck did this thing crawl its way onto the PSN? Luckily, these kinds of games are few and far between, but they are detrimental to the Sony brand and the Japanese giant needs to understand this. I believe it would be beneficial for both the company and its consumers to more effectively curate the store. Sony should help get behind and give a spotlight to the more interesting and higher quality titles that the company has faith in -- and just maybe learn to say no to the ones that they don’t. Lack Of Marketing For Some Of The PS4’s Best Exclusives Some of the Japanese giant’s best exclusive titles have been criminally under-marketed. Supermassive Games’ fantastic cinematic teen-slasher horror Until Dawn saw very little advertising and it pretty much relied solely on word-of-mouth over a proper, astute marketing campaign. Furthermore, this year’s wonderful Ratchet & Clank was released with very little fanfare from Sony, which again was a real shame as it was a fantastic PS4 exclusive that appealed to both the younger and the older generation of gamers alike. With a little more love and care, it would be advantageous for Sony, the developers and their fans to give the games that they believe in a bigger push and not just send them out all alone with very little marketing support. This lack of marketing becomes especially more egregious when you consider the one game that Sony did throw its marketing brunt at… Overhyping No Man’s Sky Was A Big Mistake No Man’s Sky will probably go down in gaming history as one of the biggest disappointments Playstation fans and gamers, as a whole, have ever experienced to this day. Sure, it's not exactly a bad game per se - its ambition and scale are noteworthy and as a demonstration of some very impressive procedurally generated technology it still somewhat blows my mind - but it’s just such a missed opportunity that the actual game is as shallow as a puddle. Sure, it’s a bloody humungous puddle, but it’s a puddle nonetheless. The fact that Sony got behind it so much and gave the game so much mindshare and time at big gaming conventions only helped to add fuel to the frenzied hype machine. In many ways, No Man’s Sky is a lesson to not only Hello Games and Sony, but it’s also a lesson for us: temper those expectations, and be cautious not to dive headfirst onto the hype bandwagon for fear of disappointment. Because that is what No Man’s Sky ultimately was for myself and for many, many others. I know hype culture helps to grease the wheels, it's just a shame that these wheels were en-route to a pretty steep cliff. I wish Sony had the vision to see that and not throw the lion's share of its marketing budget behind it. Delays, Delays… And More Delays I know Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto imparted those very wise words to us about how a delayed game can be eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad, and honestly, that's a sentiment that I completely, wholeheartedly agree with. However, I’m starting to get the feeling that some of Sony’s first-party developers really need a kick in the behind, as it’s becoming an ongoing joke that Sony’s first-party games are delayed so frequently that very few gamers even take Sony’s release date schedule seriously anymore. You just have to look at Sony Japan Studio’s The Last Guardian as evidence for this, as it’s been pretty much delayed more times than Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem: Forever combined (I've got my fingers firmly crossed that The Last Guardian won't turn out quite as bad as either of those games). It really is becoming a bit of a joke now. Even though I fully subscribe to Miyamoto’s wise philosophy, maybe it’s time for Sony to look carefully at their roster of first-party developers and take a more active approach in helping them hit the proper release dates. I’m not saying that they should interfere too much with the development process and I’m sure that Sony do oversee their games in a very professional, competent manner. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt for the Japanese giant to make sure that their games are on-track and are given adequate or supplementary support in order to hit the designated release dates that they've agreed to. Overly Restrictive Mod Support For Bethesda's Games PS4 fans have not only been forced to wait many more months than its competitor's console for mod support to arrive in Fallout 4, but interestingly, they were actually very close to not arriving at all. In Bethesda's official post, it sounded like Sony wouldn't allow mod support on their console which disappointed many fans, including myself. Luckily, mod support did arrive, albeit, in a perfunctory half-measure; PS4's mod space is limited to only 1GB in comparison to Xbox One's 5GB for The Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim Special Edition. On top of this, external assets are only allowed to be used on Microsoft's console, which means that the more dynamic and interesting mods will be unable to make their way to Sony's console. It's a shame, as it really brings into focus Sony's old-school, out-of-touch mentality that harmed Sony's brand during the infamously awful PS3 launch. For many, this may well be a non-issue, but for some like myself, it's a quibble that could be easily rectified. I’m probably being a little nit-picky, I know, but it’s because I do think that these are things that can be looked at, improved upon and ultimately help set Sony’s good ship PlayStation 4 back on course. Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom, with the excitement of the newly released PS VR and the PS4 Pro, and a slate of fantastic looking exclusives, such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, Detroit: Become Human and Days Gone, the future is looking pretty damn sweet for the console. I just hope that Sony can put its best foot forward going into 2017 and find its sea legs. Oh, and that was all without mentioning the debacle that was The Order: 1886. Yeah... I rest my case.