Wait, Sony’s Selling a New What?

I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff around the internet about how there were no female presenters during the Playstation 4 release announcement on Wednesday. While not to belittle the unfortunate truth of the role women have in the video game industry, I noticed that there was something even more noticeably absent from this two-hour show-and-tell event.

Did you notice? It was hard to spot, I think, but I think that the Playstation 4 press release probably would have been a lot more successful with the, you know… Playstation 4. 

In cased you missed the party, Sony held an event yesterday to announce the next generation of their Playstation console and talk a little bit about it. Except they didn’t really do that. This is a scathingly summarized series of events that actually happened at the conference:

• There’s a new controller! It has a touch screen! (IT’S NOT TOO DIFFERENT, DON’T FREAK OUT.)
• Look at all these graphics that are pretty decent!
• Social media!
• Online demos!
• Cloud gaming!
• Please buy a PS Vita.
• Man, those are some great-looking car seats.
• Check out this old guy’s eyes!
• Even the guy announcing Diablo 3 for the PS4 looks disappointed.
• We kind of understand what to do with the PS Move now?
• This new engine is pretty cool!
• Square Enix are teases and we give them lots of money to make pretty things.
• Bungie should really contemplate hiring an image consultant. 

Several speakers during the event uttered the phrases “unveiling the PS4” or “unmasking the PS4.” At no point during the events of the conference did anybody actually provide an even exceptionally-grainy, wobbly-camera photo of a possible prototype of the new console body, let alone whisk a red-velvet cloth from a shining new PS4 body to the stunned and awed gasps of the audience. Not only that, but Sony didn’t even address the potential cost of the new system. It’s expected to cost less than the Playstation 3 did at launch, but there has been no actual confirmed price bracket from Sony.

So… correct me if I’m wrong, but did we see anything new from Sony yesterday? Almost everything from the conference was stuff we’ve seen before. Watch Dogs has practically already been released, Square Enix showed us that (really pretty) short almost a year ago, and if you don’t know about Destiny by now, you’re probably living in a cave. I mean, sure, it would have been a little more exciting if pictures of the new controller hadn’t been leaked all over the internet. But two hours to highlight a controller? I am disappoint, Sony.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the conference was simply a reactionary move on Sony’s part to gauge it against the Xbox, as is typical of these deep-seated rivals. (Unfortunately, Sony stock dropped after the announcement, so I suppose they’ve figured that one out.)

E3 is just around the corner (June 11), so hopefully we’ll see more about the actual console then. Mark your calendars.