PlayStation 4 a Strong Game Market Contender for Sony: 10 Reasons Why

by Don Reisinger

Sony’s decision to price the PlayStation 4 at $399 could be a key reason the console sells well in the coming years. Sony’s chief competitor, the Xbox One, will cost $499 when it launches Nov. 22. Considering Sony has already sold 1 million PlayStation 4 units, its price tag surely appealed to some of those buyers.

Sony has for years been delivering consoles that are good-looking. That’s perhaps why it’s no surprise the company’s PlayStation 4 comes with a sleek, all-black finish and slanted exterior that will surely look good in any media center. It’s a great design.

Over the past week, I’ve played a large number of games on the PlayStation 4, including Battlefield 4, FIFA 14, Resogun and others. And while Resogun is exceedingly fun, the actual game lineup on the console at launch seems a bit limited. Sony is promising more games in the coming weeks, which should help matters, but right now, there aren’t many high-quality games to try out.

Sony’s PlayStation Network left much to be desired in the PlayStation 3. With its latest launch, however, Sony has made it much easier to find and buy games, and getting online to play with other gamers is a cinch. The console’s network integration is close to that of Xbox Live on Microsoft’s consoles.

Although the jump to the PlayStation 4 is a big one in terms of component power, the games available right now have yet to fully leverage the console’s enhanced technology. Killzone looks quite good on the console, and so does NBA 2K14. But it’ll be interesting to see just how great some games look a year from now when developers have the time and resources to take advantage of Sony’s hardware.

After quite a bit of time using the PlayStation 4, it seems possible that the Xbox One faces strong competition. The console is more expensive than Sony’s option, and its launch titles are similarly disappointing. What’s worse for Microsoft, the Xbox franchise has never had much of a following in Asia, an important market for game system makers. Things are shaping up for Sony to dominate the latest generation of gaming devices.

Sony made several subtle but important changes to its PlayStation 4 controller. For one thing, the controller is a bit bigger than previous models, making it easier to hold and play first-person shooters. The controller also feels more responsive and comfortable to use during long playing sessions. All in all, the Sony PlayStation 4 controller is quite nice.

The PlayStation 4 comes with a 500GB hard drive. And although that might seem like plenty of storage capacity, after just a few days of playing games on the hardware, I filled up 20 percent of my available space. Granted, I’m what some might call a “hard-core” gamer and titles can obviously be removed from the storage, but it might be worth considering getting a bigger hard drive for the PS4.

Sony was smart to avoid trying to build too much into the PlayStation 4. Yes, you can access movies and television shows from the console, but games are truly the centerpiece of its value proposition. Unlike Microsoft, which is trying to become the centerpiece of the living room with the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 is happy to be part of the total package.

Some folks who got their hands on the PlayStation 4 already have suffered from what’s being called the “Blue Light of Death.” A sizable number of PlayStation 4 owners have reported that their consoles have turned to bricks. Sony previously expected a 0.4 percent failure rate, which would put the actual failures so far at 4,000 of the 1 million units sold. While that might not seem like an excessive number, it’s a real issue for those 4,000 customers.