Today Sony finally revealed the official specs for their upcoming PlayStation 5, which follows Microsoft’s official spec reveal of the Xbox Series X from this past Monday. Now that we know the specs for both, on paper the Xbox Series X seems to be checking almost all of the boxes. While the PlayStation 5 is just a powerful, with a few slight differences. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Nope, I’m here to talk about who’s drumming up the most hype for the upcoming shopping holiday (if that happens).
Being completely honest, Microsoft is trumping Sony where it comes to this. Which is odd to me and it should be to you. We’re talking about Sony, who has dazzled us with a bunch of amazing PlayStation commercials throughout history. A company that prided itself with being “For the Gamers”, or at least that’s their catchphrase. Yet, the company has been tight-lipped when it comes to the PlayStation 5. While Microsoft has been eager to share as much information as possible, more so recently if you’re caught the bombardment of information they released recently. They even had one of the popular YouTube techies, Austin Evans and as well as Digital Foundry go hands-on with the Xbox Series X. All of which is great exposure for the console, and we’re all right there in the front row watching it all unfold.
While Sony, oh Sony, what the heck are you doing? Take the PlayStation 5 Livestream that took place on March 18, 2020. Yes, this served to be the replacement for the canceled GDC 2020 talk, and that it was originally going to be super technical, just this Livestream was. For me, it was fine as I love getting technical and nerdy with my hardware. However, for the millions of PlayStation fans, fans who wanted to see something besides this, the Livestream was a failure. The gamers were expecting Sony to do exactly as Microsoft did. As a company, they have been firing on all cylinders when it comes to the Xbox Series X. Gamers wanted to see final (or close) hardware, games being played, or the new Dualshock controller.
What did we get instead? Super nerd, Mark Cerny, doing what he does; getting super-duper technical and again, I loved it. But if I was just looking at this as a gamer, as someone who doesn’t care how the tech works, as someone who just wants to see the games in action. Then yes, this Livestream was a bust.
Now, I’m not saying that PlayStation is in trouble because we all know they aren’t. They’ve had the ball in their court ever since the PlayStation 4/Xbox One era started, and even towards the end of the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era. So, what’s happening here? If I can make an observation, I think they’re a bit full of themselves. They know they’re the market leader, they know they have the games people want to play. Oh, they know this. While makes me believe they feel they can take their time and aren’t worried about Microsoft in the slightest. Which makes sense. Microsoft and the Xbox brand are playing catch-up, which is why we’re seeing Xbox Series X every time we turn our heads.
Even still, c’mon Sony. Just because you’re the top dog doesn’t mean you should be taking it easy. This is where you’re supposed to flex your mighty PlayStation biceps and show us why you’re the company to beat. I still can’t believe that we haven’t even seen the PlayStation 5’s hardware. Yes, we’re months away from the release of the PS5, but damn it, we still want to be teased. We want to see something, not just hear spec talk. We want to see sexy hardware, we want to see the PS5 showing us why we need this console. We want to see the return of the PlayStation 3/PlayStation 4 marketing blitz.
Then again, this all could be in my head.