How the PS4 Won a Console Generation

Marcus Aurelius said:
Don Mattrick has destroyed Xbox, they're still not recovered after the Kinect and "TV" fiasco.

...Playstation should watch out too with Jim Ryan at the helm now...
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The difference is Jim Ryan has been doing great over at Playstation Europe for years running things over there and he's been with Playstation since 1994
 
IGN.....
4rFQJe6.gif
 
EverydayBeast said:
Definitely one of the best consoles and generations in gaming history, if this is it for PS4 it will be the third straight generation of beating Microsoft.
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Can't agree with you there.
This gen felt flooded with the typical shooters etc you find on pc.

PS1 felt like the best console ever with the follow up on PS2 and ps3.
PS1 had an insane amount of diversity regarding game genres, and wasn't just a fps / 3rd person/ racing machine. It had so many great platforming games, and not just another shooter being downgraded by a controller.

Same with ps2. Truly remarkable machine. Jak and daxter and games like that really set the stone in what to expect from consoles, and for me what console gaming is about as that's what controllers were designed for.

There were still some gems on ps3 and x360, even though they were action games. Really liked army of two and other games that didn't come to pc.

Then ps4 and Xbox one felt like mini pcs as most what they get is also on pc, making it worthless for a PC player to buy either unless you are a hardcore Sony player.

But then again, then you probably wouldn't care about a PC in the first place.
 
Hobbygaming said:
Like what? I do remember him saying something dumb but I forget what it was. I think he'll still run PS as is though
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Some of them are in here:

theplaystationbrahs.com

Remember Sony's Jim Ryan and All that Stupid Shit he Said? He Will Soon Be CEO and President of Sony Interactive Entertainment - All the PlayStation You’ll Ever Need!

Well, here’s a surprise we did not seeing coming. Remember Jim Ryan? He’s been at Sony forever and day. He’s said some crazy things over the years. He even has a GREATEST HITS LINEUP OF THEM! Here’s an infamous quote of his: I was at a ‘Gran Turismo’ event recently where they had PS1, PS2, […]
theplaystationbrahs.com theplaystationbrahs.com

I was at a 'Gran Turismo' event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?
 
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Honestly I think it was more of MS's over reliance on US/UK which in turn made them less desirable on the global stage. If you look at the US sales the XB lost but it wasn't a complete slaughter. XB got murdered everywhere else.
 
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Hudo said:
Pretty easy to "win" a generation if both of your opponents are basically providing better advertisement for your console than you. It's not like Sony were particularly great, it's more that Nintendo and Microsoft screwed up pretty hard so PS4 was the only rational choice.
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People keep saying this but it's actually not out of the ordinary for them to win the generation, it wasn't due to a fuck up on somebody elses part. The PS4 sold as expected for a 399 console releasing at the same time as its competitors. Xbox one actually outsold the 360 initially. The PS4 was just the better console with the better games and PlayStation as its brand and had it been the exact same as the xbox one in terms of the 'fuck up' it still would have won the generation. Even the PS3 at 599 was outselling the 360, it just released later. So while it's an easy thing to say "you only won because I fucked up" I don't think there is any truth to that. They would have won no matter what xbox did, TV or no TV.
 
For me PS4 won the gen, even before the gen started. During the last year's of 360/PS3 era.
PS first party studios were producing great games, Xbox studios wasn't even close to match that.

All goodwill MSFT gained from excellent content in the first years of 360 was gone.
 
Marcus Aurelius said:
Some of them are in here:

theplaystationbrahs.com

Remember Sony's Jim Ryan and All that Stupid Shit he Said? He Will Soon Be CEO and President of Sony Interactive Entertainment - All the PlayStation You’ll Ever Need!

Well, here’s a surprise we did not seeing coming. Remember Jim Ryan? He’s been at Sony forever and day. He’s said some crazy things over the years. He even has a GREATEST HITS LINEUP OF THEM! Here’s an infamous quote of his: I was at a ‘Gran Turismo’ event recently where they had PS1, PS2, […]
theplaystationbrahs.com theplaystationbrahs.com

I was at a 'Gran Turismo' event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?
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Lol I won't lie I kinda agree that a lot of those games haven't aged well especially on PS1 for obvious low polygon count reasons 😉
 
Things might have been different if Kinect had been a total flop on 360. It was more successful than excepted so Mattrick decided building a next gen console around a current gen fad was the way to go. And that was the end of that story.

The comparison would be Sony making VR the focus of PS5 with a price point to match.
 
I think it's funny that although the PlayStation brand has like three of the top 5 best selling consoles, a lot of people have created this fantasy where its success is owed to the failures of a much smaller brand, Xbox. A brand that by all intents and purposes had its 15 mins of fame in the heyday of the Xbox 360, which itself was only possible exactly because PlayStation 3 launched later and had an horrible start. And even though the 360 is the absolute peak of the Xbox brand, by far (like... it's a big difference), it still doesn't enter the top 5.
 
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Three said:
People keep saying this but it's actually not out of the ordinary for them to win the generation, it wasn't due to a fuck up on somebody elses part. The PS4 sold as expected for a 399 console releasing at the same time as its competitors. Xbox one actually outsold the 360 initially. The PS4 was just the better console with the better games and PlayStation as its brand and had it been the exact same as the xbox one in terms of the 'fuck up' it still would have won the generation. Even the PS3 at 599 was outselling the 360, it just released later. So while it's an easy thing to say "you only won because I fucked up" I don't think there is any truth to that. They would have won no matter what xbox did, TV or no TV.
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Well, I don't think so. The Xbox brand was very strong ,especially in the US coming from the Xbox 360. The success of the 360 was ironically because Sony fucked up the launch of the PS3. But Sony had a stronger presence in Japan (their presence there right now is a fraction of what Sony had, so that has shifted). Both the PS3 and 360 were "beaten" by the Wii but both the PS3 and 360 had longer legs overall. I think if Microsoft iterated on the strengths of the 360, there would've been a real possibility of Xbox gaining the upper hand in the US and having a sizable market share in Europe.
 
Mattrick's shenanigans and Sony's "here's how to share PS4 games" video may actually have changed minds in America, but I doubt those made an impact in Europe. In Europe, all that was needed was the PS name and being cheaper than X1. People were trampling each other to get a PS4 to play... absolutely nothing, except improved versions of old-gen games to display on TVs that were still largely 720p.
 
Mattrick is not the only one to blame. He was indeed the beggining, but he left MS on july, 20213 if I remember right.

In the end Xbox lost a lot of mind share cause they never delivered what they promised. Remember when 2014, people talked about "PromiseStation"? Where are those people now? Still here on Gaf ofc.

Anyway, talking about Sony there is no doubt they bled talent and only Shu remains from that Golden Era. So, results are remain to be seen, right now It's no stretching to say the people who are managing Playstation brand are just worse.
 
This: "MS screwed up" general idea for me is nonsense, PlayStation doesn't need others fuck up to be successful.

PlayStation is bigger than that, the Ps3 was the Sony apex of arrogance and mismanagement, yet they still were able to revert the situation, making the brand even stronger with a first party line up of studios that makes almost every hater lose their sleep.

The PS4 was going to be a huge success independent of MS mistakes.
 
Xbox was a US console, designed by US marketing people for the US market in a global industry. That's why it failed.

TV HALO TV HALO ALWAYS CONECTED DVR HALO TV.
 
Well, Sony did everything right with PS4 while MS offered an ""all in a box with Kinect2"" machine, less powerful and more expensive; not a very good presentation. Only thanks to the huge success of 360, XBox One sold not bad at all at Launch, and was competitive in NA for some time, but nothing compared to XBox 360, which dominated in NA and kicked the butt of Nintendo Wii too in that region.
 
I kinda love it when a company screws up. It makes them try harder, which benefits us joe consumer's more in the end.
 
Touch fuzZy. get BizZay said:
"If you buy a videogame, you own it. You can sell it, give it to a friend, or throw it out the window"

vs

"You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy"
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That wasn't what they were doing. It was an interesting system that used disks as keys and would allow you to sell the digital game. They were scant on details and forced the system to be the same with the disks and digital.

What they should have done it simplified that system and just added a flat fee to transfer ownership and allow you to sell the digital games. They could have tried it for the digital games only and even developed a system where you could bind the license to the original disc or to your console and go back and forth if you wanted. If I could buy/sell used digital games similar to physical, I would be happy with digital games. If I could use a disc based game without inserting the disc, I would also like that. I can't so I will buy and sell used discs on ebay, waste resources on shipping and pay ebay 13%.
 
I can't agree with the statement that "Playstation 4 won the generation" simply because they made absolutely no effort to win it. It was actually Microsoft that shot themselves in both feet and screwed up monumentally.

It'll take the Xbox division another entire generation to get the trust back to them after the Xbox one fiasco. And even then, they will still not go back to the 360 era numbers.

Winning in those conditions is not "winning" at all, unlike the PS3 generation, which the PS3 really won, though it took effort from Sony.
 
Sony's return to simplicity after the overly complex PS3 struggled against 360 was a major factor. And that simplicity was in stark contrast to the horribly confusing and poorly thought out mess that Don Mattrick presented with Xbox One. I distinctly remember overhearing people in GameStop talking amongst themselves about how they won't buy Xbox One because it would not play used games. That was months after Microsoft backtracked all those DRM plans. Didn't matter. It stuck in people's heads. The fact PS4 outperformed Xbox One was the whipped cream and the $100 lower price tag was the cherry on top.
 
Topher70 said:
Sony's return to simplicity after the overly complex PS3 struggled against 360 was a major factor. And that simplicity was in stark contrast to the horribly confusing and poorly thought out mess that Don Mattrick presented with Xbox One. I distinctly remember overhearing people in GameStop talking amongst themselves about how they won't buy Xbox One because it would not play used games. That was months after Microsoft backtracked all those DRM plans. Didn't matter. It stuck in people's heads. The fact PS4 outperformed Xbox One was the whipped cream and the $100 lower price tag was the cherry on top.
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I remember that many threads used to argue that game consoles should be $800 at launch because "they sell out anyway". And that they can lower the price 6 months after.
But as you pointed out, people don't stay that up to date. They are going to remember that it is 800 dollars and not pay attention to discounts. Much like how Xbox One was cheaper than PS4 for the majority of the generation, but many casual people STILL believe PS4 was cheaper, due to the launch price difference.
 
MacReady13 said:
If I'm being honest (I had both the PS3 and 360 and, apart from Sony exclusives, the 360 was by far the better console) I thing Microsoft lost at the time the put too much focus on that fucking Kinect. Yes, Sony did have their own motion control and camera but it wasn't as bad as what Microsoft was as doing with Kinect. Microsoft basically lost the plot and, if I'm being honest, still haven't recovered. In fact, every single decision they've made since then has been in reaction to Sony wiping the floor with them.
The 2013 tv tv tv bullshit certainly didn't help, but they were lost well before that. I purchased the One on launch as I thought Microsoft could turn it around, and I loved titanfall but I soon clicked back to Sony where I have remained since. Sony showed you can have a product that complements the main console (PSVR) without compromising it. I don't care about game pass. That's no system seller to me. Fancy pushing game rentals as a major selling point for your console and not exclusive game! God I used to love Microsoft consoles...
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That's pretty much correct - Microsoft lost much much earlier than in 2013. They shifted their strategy into heavy Kinect push while dropping support for hardcore audience games in second part of x360 generation. Which later resulted in their idea of xbox one as all in one enterntainment system.
You could say Sony pushed Move heavily also but they never dropped hardcore games crowning ps3 generation with titles like TLoU.
 
On short term, releasing a plain and simple games console made a difference. On the long term, releasing good games made a bigger difference.

But fuck Sony for joining the online paywall BS.
 
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Their exclusives really just sell about the same as most AAA titles, I think there's just this dedicated '' mainstream average joe '' audience that just buys what they see in TV ads or what CG trailer impressed them.
Sure a lot of people bought a PS4, but it was still only a small portion of those people who bought exclusives.
 
Sony knew what the customer base wanted, Microsoft did not. I would say this has persisted to this day; Xbox MO is to attract customers outside of the community identifying themselves as gamers. Sonys MO is catering to this community and emphasizing it to create a loyal fanbase.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and last console generation Xbox tried to "widen the circle" that encompasses the customer base to such an extent that it alienated even loyal customers and Sony was there to scoop them up.
 
PS4 announces that is THE 1080p machine. It's not really the case, but Xbox is just 900p, so...
PS4 announces that will run games just from the disc. It's not really the case, but Xbox says that needs internet just to press play, so...
PS4 announces the "Mario killer". It's super not the case, but Xbox doesn't have Halo at launch, so...
PS4 announces that is kinda slim. It's not really the case, but Xbox is bigger, so...
PS4 announces a new controller, with new stuff and that works for like three hours. Barely any games uses the new stuff, but Xbox doesn't have any new stuff and works with batteries, so... even thou one can buy a rechargeable battery that works for a day that doesn't need screws to open, the controller cames from the box, so...

Could be a tie like past gen, but Don Matrick fucked everything
 
Stupid consumers: BOOOOO MS to tell me ill have to be always online with my console. Lets buy a PS4 so i can be always online with it.
Also stupid consumers: I use my X360 over 60% for watching movies, HOW DARE U MS to shift the focus to more media usage!
 
FromDuskTillGameOver said:
Stupid consumers: BOOOOO MS to tell me ill have to be always online with my console. Lets buy a PS4 so i can be always online with it.
Also stupid consumers: I use my X360 over 60% for watching movies, HOW DARE U MS to shift the focus to more media usage!
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Nice hot take. Microsoft should hire you.
 
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