What happened to the PS4, Sony?

[Brian G Turner]

From another thread:

the PS4, which is what I'd get, doesn't have that much that I actually want to play.

Same here - our PS1 through to PS3 was a family entertainment centre. My daughters played Spyro, Little Big Planet, Ratchet and Clank (before it went stupid shoot-em up for boys); I played the Tekken and Wipeout series, and my wife played Tomb Raider, Dragon Age. And so on.

There was something for us all.

The PS4 has been out for almost a year - but all the game releases all appear targeted to the same 18-24 male demographic:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-PC-Video-Games/zgbs/videogames/2574539031/

Guns! Muscles! Sport! Blood!

The exceptions are Minecraft - which does nothing to utilise the PS4's specs - and LittleBigPlanet 3, which is also available on PS3.

Aside from that, the PS4 is useless for families - after a year of being on sale.

Dear Sony - did you forget about the rest of us? Why? Surely every market research shows that adults in the 35-50 range have far more money to spend than the demographic you're targeting?

 

[thaddeus6th]

Whilst I agree, I think it's also be fair criticism of the Xbox One. It's not a Sony problem, it's a Next Gen (Current Gen?) problem.

And it's bloody weird. The idea people might want videogames to play on their consoles isn't exactly advanced business science. The PS4 and Xbox One are like new supermarkets that sell bread, and milk, and not much else.

Not in a position to buy a PS4 now, but I do keep an eye on games in case I will be in the future. So far, my list for PS4 is:
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Kingdom Come: Deliverance

And that's it. And Inquisition comes out for the PS3 as well (I might get a DLC-laden swanky Ultimate Edition for the PS4, but that's a big maybe).

So why would I buy a PS4? Even if I had the money (I don't, alas), that'd be about £350 plus for a single game, which comes out (first part, I think) next year.

I do think this will naturally get better, but the weird prolonged cross-over period between PS3 and PS4 (or 360 and One) is much longer than I can remember happening in previous generations.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I don't have much experience with the xbox series - we've always been a Playstation family, ever since the original console was released. So we've seen how it's provided a wide-ranging family gaming experience over the past two decades.

But a year after the launch of the PS4 and the range is still so narrow? I guess Sony's decision to get rid of Studio Liverpool is really biting them now.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Hmm. Not sure if it was that, but I remember hearing that a studio for Sony Playstation closing that angered a lot of people in the company, and it was done (it seems, my memory's a bit vague) for reasons of internal politics and/or spite.

However, the PS4 seems more popular with third parties than the Xbox One, due to being slightly more powerful and easy to code for, so I'd expect the range of games to be perfectly good but the strange delay remains, well, strange.

 

[Lenny]

The PS4 has been out for almost a year - but all the game releases all appear targeted to the same 18-24 male demographic

Can I just say I'm loving my PS4? With my four games that all fall in that "Guns! Muscles! Sports! Blood!" range... and at least two or three others that are out that I'm considering, and a handful coming out before the end of the year that I'm looking at getting.

In terms of things I'd play, the PS4 lineup is similar to what the PS3 had to offer me - I've just gone through a list of 2007 Video Game Releases, and by the end of that year I had four games on the list (and bought another one a few years later), including two that I got with the console.

---

On the narrowness of range, I partly agree, but also partly disagree because of the sheer number of games being released.

2001 saw close to thirty games released for the PS2, of which maybe four weren't "Guns! Muscles! Sports! Blood!" games.

2007 saw around forty games for the PS3, with a similar number of non-"Guns! Muscles! Sports! Blood!" games as the PS2.

By the end of this year, we will have had over 130 games released for the PS4, including non-"Guns! Muscles! Sports! Blood!" games as:

• The Lego Movie Videogame, Lego The Hobbit, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
• Fez
• Rayman Legends
• Backgammon Blitz, Pure Chess
• Octodad
• Oddworld: New and Tasty
• Minecraft
• Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes
• Skylanders: Trap Team
• LittleBigPlanet 3

There are probably more in the list of releases for this year, but those are the ones that jumped out during a quick scan of the list - anything I wasn't sure about I ignored.

Look at the numbers - 10% of games released in a console's first year are something not G!M!S!B!. 10% of forty is paltry. 10% of 130 is somewhat better. 10% of 1000 would be great, but I can't ever see that happening in a console's first year (ignoring the Steam Machines, as it already has an established library of games).

My opinion, in answer to "What happened to the PS4, Sony?": nothing. Everything is on course.

The start of this generation is no different to previous generations, and I personally think it makes sense. A company puts hundreds of millions into developing and marketing a new console, and wants to ensure that they'll do well. There may be people clamouring for family-friendly games out of the gate, but the market is fueled by Guns!, Muscles!, Sports!, and Blood!. That's where the money is, that's where the gamers are (I think it's unfair to limit the age range to 18-24), that's where you're going to build your installation base the quickest.

Just give it time. No-one's being forced to buy a new console (heck, a large percentage of new games are still coming out on the PS3 and 360).

---

Quick question for you, Brian: what are Tekken, Wipeout, and Tomb Raider, if not examples of "Guns! Muscles! Sports! Blood!"?

 

[Brian G Turner]

There are probably more in the list of releases for this year, but those are the ones that jumped out during a quick scan of the list

The trouble with the family titles you list is that almost all are available on the PS3, with no apparent advantage to playing them on the PS4.

Quick question for you, Brian: what are Tekken, Wipeout, and Tomb Raider, if not examples of "Guns! Muscles! Sports! Blood!"?

Oh, true - but even those were games the kids could safely play (not so sure about the last Tomb Raider title, though).

Look at the PS4 best sellers list again - the majority are 18+ rated. That's not because that's what sells - it's because that's pretty much all that's being sold.

There is almost nothing in the kids or puzzle subcategory other than Lego games - from the PS3.

The PS4 is mainly targeted to gamers who want extreme violence and gore. Which is fine - nothing wrong with having that choice. But with the PS4, it's not a choice, it's mandatory.

That's my frustration - as a long term Playstation buyer.

 

[soulsinging]

Look at the PS4 best sellers list again - the majority are 18+ rated. That's not because that's what sells - it's because that's pretty much all that's being sold.

There is almost nothing in the kids or puzzle subcategory other than Lego games - from the PS3.

The PS4 is mainly targeted to gamers who want extreme violence and gore. Which is fine - nothing wrong with having that choice. But with the PS4, it's not a choice, it's mandatory.

That's my frustration - as a long term Playstation buyer.

It's good business. Yes, the numbers say "gamers" are older and gender neutral, but they include people that play angry birds on an iphone. When you're talking console gaming... they lose $ on the console and have to make it up on games, which means not just one but multiple purchases. Families may have more money, but their money is also less disposable... they have bills and kids to pay for. Adolescents are basically ALL disposable income. And while a family might buy a game a month and have the kids make do, the hardcore gamers will buy 4 shooters a month in order to be "up" on the latest games (even if it seems most of them do it only so they can later go on a review site and rage about how crappy and overpriced the game was and it was a rip off of some previous (and nearly identical) shooter game). I had a roommate in college that spent hundreds EACH WEEK on video games.

All that said, bummer to hear this. The draw to PS3 (my first gaming console since high school) was its versatility with respect to streaming and blurays and such. Always seemed to me that xbox was the console that was most targeted for violence-lovers... and endless parade of generic Halo retreads. PS3 had Last of Us, Heavy Rain, Portal... far more interesting and varied work it seemed to me... a shame if they lose that.