One thing that the PlayStation 4 announcement last week brought home for me was just how much the world has changed since the last time we were introduced to a new Sony console in 2005. Back then, the iPhone didn't exist, consoles and PC were still the only major players in the video games industry, and a console with Internet connectivity was still a novelty to hundreds of thousands of people. These changes are only accentuated by the length of this console generation, which has exceeded any that went before it. It feels like the PlayStation 4 is launching into a completely different world.
Sitting down with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's president and CEO Jim Ryan the morning after the announcement, I asked him which developments of the past six years or so have made the PlayStation 4 possible. Here are the four most significant.
The PS3 Has Been Successful (source: ign.com)
Most obviously, if the PlayStation 3 hadn't done well over the past five years, the PlayStation 4 would definitely not be happening. "The first thing is that we had a condition of considerable success with the PS3, and had that not happened, we probably would not be sitting here after yesterday’s event," says Ryan. "PS3 was not all that easy in the beginning, but we’re now 70m units in, and certainly in the part of the world I look after, in most European territories you’re in a very dominant market position, and there's good momentum – PS3 will carry on going. That success was definitely a necessary condition… it’s a big thing for any corporation to decide that they’re going to introduce a new platform, and you can best do that from a position of success."
Improved Internet Infrastructure (source: ign.com)
Although the PlayStation 4 does not require an Internet connection to function - something that was rumoured before the announcement, and a prospect that was getting plenty of people worried - connectivity is a huge part of the console's pitch, as evidenced by the Share button and the console's Gaikai cloud-gaming integration, which looks set to become one of its defining features. What has enabled this is the improvement of the global Internet infrastructure; more people than ever are online, and more people than ever have access to broadband, so it is easier to justify making connectivity so integral to the console.
"Our levels of connectedness on the PS3 platform are extremely high – in excess of 90%, even in places like Italy and Spain," says Ryan. "When you have that level of connectedness it makes that sort of innovation much easier to justify. It becomes much easier to do than if you’re running at 10% levels of connectivity; everybody’s online, so the ROI [return on investment] – which unfortuantely people like myself do have to worry about – on those sorts of investment decisions becomes much more straightforward."
Social Media (source: ign.com)
As well as better broadband, social media has totally changed the way we communicate with each other since the PlayStation 3 was announced, pushing us towards sharing more of our lives online. This has made social integration on the PlayStation 4 not only possible, but necessary. The DualShock 4's Share button and the PlayStation Network's increased personalisation show how the console is embracing the more socially-connected Internet that has developed since the PlayStation 3's release, claims Jim.
"We think personalisation is very important in this day and age. You’ll have a home page on the network which is yours, [with] stuff that you’ve bought and that your friends have bought, what your friends are doing... The social aspect is probably most important of all – this deep, very rich social engagement, whether it’s via social networks or by using this rather cool Share button.
"I think the general move to this connected world that we live in now makes the realisation of what we’re going to do with the PS4 possible to an extent that really wasn’t the case 5 or 6 years ago, " he concludes.
The Breakdown of Hardware Barriers (source: ign.com)
In 2006 the idea of being able to use, say, your Samsung phone with your Sony games console was preposterous. Since then, however, smartphones and tablets have become so dominant that console manufacturers have had to acquiesce (and other electronics hardware manufacturers - there are even ovens you can control with your iPhone). This is the impetus behind the Xbox's SmartGlass, and the PlayStation 4 will use apps to let you use tablets and phones as second screens (as well as the Vita, of course). We are no longer limited by hardware compatibility to anywhere near the same extent.
"One of the things that we increasingly see is that the silos that have existed in the past with these vertical platforms are getting broken down little bit by little bit," observes Ryan. (In plain English, platforms are no longer closed - they have to integrate.) "Things are becoming more open and less proprietary, and this can only be good for consumers. It brings certain technical challenges and business model challenges in certain spaces, but I think in this day and age companies like Sony have to meet those challenges head-on."
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