Playstation 4 – Why I’m Not Interested In Buying One (Yet)

So there’s been a News post going around today that the Playstation 4 could debut at this year’s E3 and when I read this, I wasn’t interested in the prospect of buying one at all.

I know a lot of Gamers are, they quote how bad the PS3 is in terms of graphics card power and RAM and all this, but all I see is the money signs.

At the moment, the World Economy is very fragile to say the least. We seem to be walking a tightrope that small things could very easily knock us off of. Consumer confidence is through the floor, resulting in stores offering very high percentage discounts, just to get people through the door for Christmas.

The Playstation 3 is still reasonably high priced, with some Gamers still waiting the price down to a level that they can afford and just a matter of a couple of months ago, Sony were telling us that they were commited to the Playstation 3 and to their promise to keep it going for its estimated 10-year lifespan, which would put the PS3′s death at around the 2016 mark.

Four years earlier than that though, as I said earlier, it is rumoured that Sony will be announcing the Playstation 4 at the E3 Gaming Conference this June. If that’s the case and it follows the Playstation 3′s European launch, we could perhaps be looking at a PS4 launch in 2014/2015.

I have to admit, if this was the case and you assumed a PS3 end-date of 2016, this would be reasonable. Playstations have historically continued to live on past the launch of their Next Gen counterparts, primarily due to price and Developers’ familiarity with the Current Gen.

Even now, figures from Sony show people continue to buy the Playstation 2, despite that console now entering it’s 12th year of life.

Having said that, the end of a Console’s life when it has to compete with its successor, isn’t exactly a dignified end. As a Playstation 2 owner, I experienced the impact as Game Developers moved on to the Playstation 3.

Development for PS2 versions of new titles eventually got handed down to Game Developers you’ve likely never heard of. The PS2 versions usually bared little resemblance to the PS3 version of the game and often, even fell very far short of the PS2′s capabilities.

All the while, those fortunate enough to be able to afford the, often massive, cost of the Next Gen Consoles boast about how superior their Gaming experience is, despite the inevitable teething troubles of the first models, leaving those that can barely afford the Current Gen feeling left out and left behind.

Sales of the PS2 likely remain strong because of a combination of the consistant high-price of the Playstation 3 (it hasn’t changed much in Europe for the past year), the back-catalogue of PS2 titles and the lack of (PS2) Backwards Capatibility of the PS3 (though it can play old Playstation 1 titles reasonably well).

Even so, the end of the Playstation 3′s life could turn out to be a slow death, rather than an extra three or four years of life, with versions of new titles gradually getting worse and worse in quality, by Developers you’ve never heard of, until they fade out altogether.

Technology must, of course, progress. A new iPhone or iPad every two seconds shows us this, and even IF an announcement of the Playstation 4 is made this June, it’s going to take some time to fully develop a production model, as well as produce decent Launch Titles.

This, as well as incoming titles such as Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Last of Us, mean the Playstation 3 has some time yet, before the final call.

As a Gamer, naturally I’ll be interested to see what the PS4 may look like, what Sony will say it will be able to do, but I currently have no interest in the prospect of buying the Playstation 4, nor the Xbox 720 or the Wii U.

At the moment, considering everything, I can only see them as an unnecessary and quite massive expense, which will alienate the already squeezed finances of a lot of Gamers.

Consider that in the UK, the Playstation 3 is STILL priced at around £230 new, before you take into account that all games are released at a price of between £34 ($52.50) and £40 ($61) per game, not including Special Editions, which can be £10 ($15.50), £20 ($31) or £30 ($46) more than that, prices that have barely changed since the Console’s release.

I guess we’ll have to see what happens this June at the E3 Conference.

As I say, assuming I had unlimited amounts of money, I’m obviously interested in what the Playstation 4 could do, how it would improve over the Playstation 3, what would be possible and what it would look like.

As someone that waits a long time to upgrade their console, I guess I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to the Playstation 3 just yet.

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