You can ask most people, I can find the good in anything. Find me the worst game you can think of and I will come up with a decent argument for at least one part of it. That's just me. I try to find the good, acknowledge and catalog the bad, and move on. When I'm investing time in something I don't want it to be a waste, so I at least make it a learning experience. It's not about convincing myself that something bad is good, it's about understanding why decisions were made the way they were, specifically in games.
Slightly to that point, there is something to be said about being both a gamer and a game developer. In many ways they are one in the same. Gamer me continually pushes game developer me to create better experiences, and as a game developer I am always looking forward to advances that allow for new ways for players to experience games. On the other hand, it sometimes takes away from the excitement of announcements, because many times the features and experiences we, as an industry, want players to have are all very similar. We see things moving certain ways, shaped by societal changes. We actually put a lot of work into predicting the future and what players are going to expect from games by the time a product we are working on launches. So in some ways, Game Developer me tempers what gamer me hears.
So all that said, game developer me agrees with a lot of what Sony said in their PS4 unveiling. Games being a more social experience. The barriers of use being broken down. Predictive algorithms that end up tailoring your experience to be more about what you enjoy as a player. These are all great things that will absolutely be a boon to developers. Gamer me, though, heard what they were saying, was excited, then let down by what was shown, because the promise of this new experience was not apparent in any of the new titles that were talked about. Sure, the share button is cool, and it absolutely goes to the point of barriers of use being broken down that I mentioned earlier, but gamer me has seen clips and streaming PS3/360/PC games already in the past few years. The social aspects mentioned all sound great, but nothing was shown really making use of any of them. Don't get me wrong, the games shown were all technically impressive, but none of them sold me on the ideas that they spent the first half hour talking about.
Killzone - visually great
Driving Club - More photorealistic than any GT game
Knack - Potentially fun premise
Infamous Second Son - I've confirmed what was shown was in-engine, so nice!
Third-party stuff is more difficult for me to gauge, simply because I admittedly play a lot more on my PC now, so if it's going to be available on PC that's where I'm going to buy it since I've invested quite a bit of money into it. Comfy couch comments need not apply as I've wired HDMI to my TV from my PC, so I'm just as comfy as I would be playing on a console. So while Watch_dogs looked AMAZING, they've basically confirmed it for PC...and it was confirmed to be running on a PC at the Sony event. I liked what I heard about Destiny when it was unveiled this past weekend, so that hasn't changed. I'll definitely get it on a platform where I'll be able to play with the most of my friends. So all that stuff was nice to see.
I just wonder, in general, if Sony did themselves any favors by announcing early. Sure, it allowed them to talk about what their thought process is for their new system, but again, nothing they showed really utilized much of what they talked about. In addition, the expectation at E3 for them will be, "Well what else new do you have to show us?" So if they come out and just show the same games, but further along and more in-depth, it could be slightly problematic from the aspect of competitors potentially showing new games too. People are going to be more excited about the things they didn't know about versus learning more about something they already knew about. Hopefully they have some cool, new games to show at E3 as well that aren't just third-party offerings available elsewhere too.
So while game developer me really digs the platform potential that was talked about today, gamer me just didn't see it in action enough to get excited. When I have a PS4 (and I will, I'm not even going to try to convince myself otherwise) I will play and enjoy Infamous Second Son, Knack, whatever Media Molecule and Naughty Dog come up with, and many other exclusive titles for sure, but I'm disappointed that we were told about what Sony's vision of next-gen was, without really seeing that in practice.
