The PS5 is about games. That’s probably a good thing

If you asked me about the strengths of PlayStation compared to the competition, I would refer 100% to the video games themselves.

God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, and exclusive third-party products like Bloodborne have reached a rapid pace that Microsoft and its in-house studios simply couldn’t achieve.

Last generation Microsoft and the Xbox brand weren’t even in the run.

So when it was time for Sony to finally introduce its next generation console Future of gaming eventSony has not relied on specs or cumbersome pipe dreams to make consoles the entertainment center of your living room. Sony has just shown video games.

Many, many video games.

Sony’s PlayStation 5 showcase was opened with Spider-Man Miles Morales and closed with Horizon prohibited west, Sequels to absolute corkers with established fan communities and critical applause. But between those two heavyweights was a huge series of games that were revealed in a shotgun explosion that was so intense that it was almost impossible to assess what we were actually getting into.

On Thursday, at the Future of Gaming event, Sony’s real strength was diversity. AAA games like Spider-Man stood alongside nostalgia baits like Demon’s Souls and Ratchet and Clank. But indie titles – including a coming-of-age story about high school dinosaurs (?) And a game in which you play as a cat in a cybercity populated by broken robots (??) – stood the test of time front and center stage. Unconventional games that Sony and Microsoft traditionally play in a ghetto indie montage were given the same platform and weight as Stalwarts resident Evil. It was really refreshing.

Launch events like this are traditionally showcases for lifelike graphics, but here it was the wide, varied range of art styles that shimmered through. The PlayStation 5, similar to that Xbox Series X.will no doubt be a powerful machine. But you feel that Art Direction and the pure staff will bring about a lot of visual improvements in the next generation – not the screws and nuts of the console itself.

Games like Little Devil Inside, an afterworld adventure title that looked different from any video game I’ve ever seen, stood comfortably alongside games like Horizon Forbidden West, a game that will set new standards in the more traditional sense.

The future of games

By focusing exclusively on the games, Sony has largely avoided issues that may show Microsoft’s strengths with the Xbox X series. Microsoft relies on both cloud and subscription games. Project xCloud allows you to stream games like Forza Horizon 4 on your phone, while Game Pass is essentially Netflix for games. Will PlayStation Now compete with Project xCloud? What is Sony’s answer to Game Pass, the service that Xbox boss Phil Spencer believes will be more important in the long run than the Xbox Series X console itself?

For a presentation titled “The Future of Games”, this was a presentation rooted in the here and now: this is the console and these are the games you will be playing. Sony promises more details in later presentations, but it’s easy to be surprised. Is this the point where Microsoft and Sony go different ways? One focused more on video games than service, the other on building the best possible library of traditional exclusive products.

The physical design of the PS5 seems to suggest this. Microsoft relies on the traditional home console that is slowly disappearing and is being replaced by cloud games and a monthly subscription model. Sony wants to keep the good times going.

The gaudy, white and indispensable PS5 is a bold departure from previous consoles that can be combined with other devices that sit quietly under your TV. That’s exactly what I expected as a teenager that consoles would look like in 1999. Loud and proud, it says, “Hey, it’s me, the PS5, I’m playing the video games you’ve heard so much about.”

Again: Sony is playing with its strengths.