PlayStation has always been my console of choice ever since Sony's inception into the gaming industry. The late 1990's were fantastic years for gaming due to the PlayStation changing how we viewed games, no longer as the kiddy Nintendo "toy" and making them "cool" and mainstream.
September 9th, 1995 Sony hit us with the catch phrase "U R NOT
E" (you are not ready). It was a pivotal point in gaming, especially for me. I was introduced to Tekken, Ridge Racer, an arcade perfect Mortal Kombat 3 and was blown away. Oh I had always been a gamer, Sega Master System, NES, Genesis & SNES were all in my home, but I wasn't as much of a gamer as I had thought. Until PlayStation came I was only tinkering with the AAA titles from Nintendo and playing Shinobi's on Sega's system. Saturn was never appealing to me and I never actually owned one. So when Sony came on the scene and just took us all by surprise, it was then I began to REALLY play games and from that moment on was there for every launch of a new system anyone had to offer because I couldn't be happy with just one.
PlayStation 2 continued the whammy and kicked much ass and still does so to this day in my opinion. Literally thousands of games available and so many great titles to choose from. I still play my PS1 & PS2 weekly [still have them on deck and in great shape] and enjoy the old games.
The PlayStation 3 on the other hand wasn't so impact-full The PS3 is an incredible system, but for me lacked something. It wasn't in the fact the system had issues with it being a Cell processor and some games just ran like poo, it was in the marketing and the design that felt way out in left field. Spider-Man font...poor marketing or just not enough period made it feel lackluster to me. Microsoft had gained so much steam launching almost a full year ahead of Sony and all our beloved "exclusives" began to no longer be exclusive to Sony's beast machine or just jumped ship altogether. However, Sony made some changes midway through the console's life and made it what it should have been from the intro, but it was still a bit too late for the masses.
Now comes PlayStation 4...wow. We don't know the final console design yet, but the DualShock 4 controller was revealed and looks fantastic. An improved quality D-pad [already a strong point on ALL PlayStation controllers so far], much better R2 trigger design and even the grips look to be a perfect re-touch of what was already a impressive and loved controller design. I know the old saying "if it ain't broke.." but I felt a change was needed and it came [no boomerang either].
It feels like it was just yesterday that we first put our hands on the first PlayStation, but eighteen years later we're about to be playing the fourth console from Sony and I am truly excited. To be honest, it felt like this generation was never going to end...like we would be playing PS3's and Xbox 360's forever. I mean let's face it, the systems are still pumping out badass graphics and games, but the recent Bioshock Infinite and Resident Evil 6 on PC really showed me how much the current gen consoles have tapped out all resources.
Of course, power means nothing, yet content is everything. If the PS4 cannot pull off good games, it will fail. So let's see what Sony brings to E3, because I feel it in my gut that 2013 is going to be a huge year for gaming and Sony.
