{"id":126,"date":"2013-02-21T01:34:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T01:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=126"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:22:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:22:36","slug":"ps4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2013\/02\/21\/ps4\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Apple Doesn\u2019t Talk, Vol. 3: Sony\u2019s PlayStation 4 Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An increasingly-justified fear of irrelevance seems to be driving Sony\u2019s every move these days. Its latest public display: yesterday\u2019s clearly-too-soon announcement of the PlayStation 4. It was by nearly all accounts a bizarre\u00a0two-hour ordeal<\/a>\u00a0that featured no launch date, no pricing,\u00a0and no product.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything about this event, from the lack of specifics, to the\u00a0Office Space slides with MS Paint brains<\/a>, to the\u00a0creepy old man head<\/a>, points to a rushed announcement. Why? Why did Sony need to talk on February 20th? Why not wait for a presentable product? Some playable games? Anything\u00a0real<\/em>? And why release the technical specs\u00a0after the event<\/a>, having just filled a room with reporters for two hours? Even the\u00a0official press release<\/a>\u00a0feels sloppy, listing\u00a0PlayStation 4 itself after the new controller and camera. Everything about the announcement is weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to get sidetracked and\u00a0ridicule Sony<\/a>\u00a0(again<\/a>), but this is a teachable moment. People would have happily waited longer for a comprehensive, exciting product launch. It\u2019s been nearly seven years since the last PlayStation was revealed; would another month or two have tipped some scale?\u00a0Whoever this was aimed at \u2014 developers, hardcore gamers, casual gamers \u2014 the utter lack of usable information makes the timing questionable at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also competitive repercussions: Sony has now shown its hand way ahead of time. Microsoft is not expected to announce its next-generation Xbox until E3 in June, leaving more than three months to respond accordingly. If Sony\u2019s offering ends up superior to the Xbox when that announcement happens, then Sony hasn\u2019t gained much, because we still don\u2019t know what it has or what it can do, and it\u2019ll be months-old news.<\/em> If Sony\u2019s offering ends up inferior, it will be upstaged and <\/em>stale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re going to strike early, you must strike hard. A strong offering is strong at any time. The same goes for a weak one. The difference is knowing what you have, and adjusting the message accordingly. Sony did not do that yesterday, and has now lost the opportunity to do so tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An increasingly-justified fear of irrelevance seems to be driving Sony\u2019s every move these days. Its latest public display: yesterday\u2019s clearly-too-soon announcement of the PlayStation 4. It was by nearly all accounts a bizarre\u00a0two-hour ordeal\u00a0that featured no launch date, no pricing,\u00a0and no product. Everything about this event, from the lack of specifics, to the\u00a0Office Space slides […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}