PlayStation 4 is already a success story. Selling ridiculous amounts of units in a ridiculously short amount of time heralds quite the turnaround from the dismal launch of the PlayStation 3 and the epic game of catchup Sony had to play during that generation. Yet, as soon as Sony seems to learn to avoid its past mistakes, it steps into a fresh steaming pile of them. Here are a few of the larger droppings on the bottom of the PS4’s rather lovely shoes.
Lack of a killer first-party exclusive
Sure, there were some first-party exclusives on PlayStation 4 such as Infamous: Second Son, LittleBigPlanet 3, Killzone: Shadow Fall and Driveclub, but they were about it; and setting some rather impressive graphical showcases aside, none were really bonafide console sellers in the end. Strangely enough, the only game that came close was a spruced up version of PS3 masterpiece The Last of Us. Fine for those converting from Xbox perhaps, but it’s a damning failure for long-term PlayStation owners to have a game many had played a year ago be the beacon of PS4’s greatness. Delays to certain exclusives hampered the barren first months of the PS4’s life, but if there was a saving grace here (for some anyway) then it was the slew of quality indie titles that filled the lengthy gaps between the big-hitters.
The downtime
Before we even arrived at the server nightmare before Christmas (and on Christmas,and Boxing Day, and so on…) there had already been quite enough downtime in year one, much of it unexplained. You could put some of it down to teething problems, but Sony’s ever-so-frustrating tendency to take a vow of silence on such matters meant PS4 owners were left perplexed and angry when they inexplicably couldn’t play online for no apparent reason.
Here’s hoping year two isn’t as heavily peppered with intermittent connections as we find console titles become more and more reliant on Internet-required features. However, it’s more important that Sony is transparent about the ‘when’ and ‘why’ of any and all downtime if it wants to avoid much of the froth-mouthed rage (fair and unfair) directed at them recently.
More first-year disappointments by PS4 on Page 2.
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Driveclub launch
Things seemed to be going fairly well for Driveclub. Even the hurdle of having its release date pushed back was only to supposedly tweak and twiddle with the finer points of the already stunning-looking racer. Then the game arrived and suddenly this sleek motor started to fall apart like a poorly made soapbox car. The biggest problem off the bat was the servers. They were a non-functioning hot mess at launch, meaning all of Driveclub’s much-vaunted social aspects were absent for early adopters, stripping the racer back to its core and revealing a fairly pretty–if basic–driving game. To add insult to injury, features such as dynamic weather were also unavailable at the start.
The knock-on effect of all this was that the PS Plus version of Driveclub was put on indefinite hiatus, causing more ill will towards already beleaguered developer Evolution Studios. As it stands, some of those issues have been resolved and DLC has been offered for free, but the damage has already been done to both the game and its developer’s reputation. If Evolution gets another shot at Driveclub, it will have to make it absolutely spectacular from day one.
Promised features appearing late, poorly, or just not appearing
Sony’s lead in the current console generation sales mainly stemmed from promising the opposite of whatever was in that utter crap-storm Microsoft brewed with their ill-judged Xbox One reveal, but it did promise some cool-sounding features, stuff like Share Play, streaming classic PlayStation games and Suspend-Resume. All well and good until we discovered nearly none of these were at launch and only some of them (the ‘fun when it works’ Share Play) have properly arrived since. Yes, these features weren’t necessarily promised for launch, but getting them twelve months down the line and still being unsure about when certain features will ever see the light of day is irritatingly reminiscent of the PS3-era promises that often failed to materialize. Heck, when some do arrive, they are already looking doomed. See the muddled trial run of the PlayStation Now game streaming service and marvel in the glory of its laughable pricing system and rental windows for an example.
It’s not all bad, though. Remote Play worked from launch and is remarkably well implemented, to the point that I personally find my Vita to be a natural extension of my PS4. If Sony could deliver those remaining promised features before next Christmas, with the quality levels of Remote Play, then the PS4 could put some real distance from its nearest rival for years to come.
Game crashes/error codes
There were plenty of broken and unfinished games out this past year of PS4’s existence, but there was an alarmingly persistent problem with all sorts of games during the first part of the year: crashes and error codes. This seemed to be more of a hardware issue than a software one, as it was encountered in everything from indie titles like Don’t Starve to the uber-polished The Last of Us Remastered. You’d be playing your game without a care in the world when out of nowhere it would freeze and drop out to the blue-hued horror of the error code screen. Games had to be re-installed, data was corrupted, and early adopters were left wondering why they’d bothered signing up to the next generation early.
That problem seems to have died off somewhat in recent months and probably didn’t cause all that much fuss at the time as it was so early in the PS4’s life, but it certainly didn’t make me feel like the future was here and greatness awaited.
What disappointed you the most about the first year of PlayStation 4? Where best could Sony improve the system?