As anyone who has been on the Internet already knows, Sony announced the PlayStation 4, and its reception has trumped both Nintendo and Microsoft in a series of corporate press releases that can be compared to the dumbest game of Texas Hold ‘Em ever played, where everyone just sat and eyeballed each other for six months before someone finally called in the most cowardly non-committed way possible in the hopes that it would make someone else show their hand, whereupon the flop cards were revealed to be a joker, a get-out-of-jail-free and a Pokémon card.

Although “announced” might be too charitable a word because they didn’t reveal the console or the price or the release date or much of anything really, besides the new controller which they were really excited about because they came up with an idea for a dedicated “annoy all your friends” button.

So instead, Sony is throwing all its eggs into the social media basket for the sake of a USP with the ability to instantly show all your friends what you’re doing and even let them take control. So the PS4 is for people not only unconcerned about having the best games but also that don’t particularly want to play them. So much for using your console for social interaction, especially if you have that “one friend”. You know, the one friend who is perpetually annoying and you wonder why you have them around. You know he or she will exploit it to no end.

You can also record video footage and upload it to YouTube which will make Let’s Play a lot easier to do, but it leaves one wondering if there is a difference between Sony enabling cultural criticism and Sony just trying to get everyone to do their marketing for them. And I think we all know which one Sony would prefer because it is a console manufacturer which in the current climate is the entity with the demeanor of a cornered wolf and the financial stability of a tin-mine in a supernova.

Wow, this review seems to be a lot negative than intended. Why is this mentioned? Because for all the negative points mentioned in this article, there are just as many positives to the PlayStation 4 despite the feeling that they made them because the company’s champagne fountain needed refilling.

Moving away from the Cell architecture, the PlayStation 4 will feature an AMD processor based around the x86-64 instruction set. This is intended to make video game development easier on the next-generation console, attracting a broader range of developers. These changes highlight Sony’s effort to improve upon the lessons learned during the development, production and release of the PS3. Other notable hardware features of the PS4 include 8 GB of unified memory in the form of GDDR5, a faster Blu-ray Disc drive, and dedicated custom chips for processing audio, video and background tasks. So not only do you get more advanced games with a better…. well, everything, you also get to have the opportunity to play games with friends while your older relatives sit together and have a marathon of Gilligan’s Island episodes.

The controller will feature several output connectors. Its stereo jack (3.5 mm TRS connector) will support the connection of a headset to allow a user to speak and hear audio simultaneously. A micro USB port, an extension port, and a mono speaker will also be included. The controller can be charged via micro USB, a dedicated charging station, or the console (even when the console is off, smart move by Sony to include that).

So, the PS4 will be released sometime in October or November of this year. It should be worth looking at.