On February 20th, Sony announced the Playstation 4 and the internet subsequently exploded. It didn’t matter that most of the big reveals had been previously leaked, it turns out news of the touch-sensitive controller, sharing features and sheer brute force was enough to send imaginations reeling into overdrive. The ball is now in Microsoft’s court: a reveal of the next Xbox can’t be far away. But what do we want to see on these new consoles?
Power – this is the obvious one but remains the most important: the next consoles should see a massive increase in computing strength. This fundamentally leads to much more beautiful and immersive experiences. But as well as this we’d also like to see some of this extra juice go into improving multitasking and making our digital adversaries much more cunning. The time has come for us to be outsmarted, outclassed and challenged in every aspect of our gaming.
A motion re-think. Motion controls have always had a contentious relationship with so-called ‘core’ gamers at best. Wiis sit dormant, gathering dust in vast quantities across the land, and Kinect never really set the world on fire. We want innovation combined with rock-solid accuracy and fidelity in the next wave of motion controllers. We want them to enhance experiences, not just make us in constant danger of knocking over fine furnishings and face-planting the floor.
Connectivity – in a post-Facebook world we want to be connected to everything and everyone. Sony’s plans to allow us to stream our games online and embarrass ourselves thoroughly are compelling, but we want more. We want our consoles to be humming away quietly streaming a game to our computer while we sit in the kitchen. Allow us to plug controllers into our phones and we could play full-quality games almost anywhere. The possibilities are endless.
No, games.