Monday, January 13, 2014

My Thoughts and Impressions of Sony's CES Press Conference

Let me just say I really enjoyed with Kazuo Hirai's Sony CES keynote presentation, it started well with Kaz talking about romper room and cookies! Then segwaying to some of the most prolific products Sony has made from the Walkman, the Disc man and it was great how he brought up the Beta max and how not everything Sony creates is embraced by consumers. But he masterfully used an ad for the Betamax with the tag line whatever whenever which would resonate throughout the conference.
I'll admit he kinda lost me when he started talking about the benefits to the health and agriculture industries...
But then Kaz switched gears to something I'm much more interested in than when my peaches are ripe, entertainment! In particular video games.....C'mon Kaz tell us about the GaiKai!
Nope we were treated to a relaxed chat with Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton and creator of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan. Now this could've been an epic fail like Michael Bay's meltdown but it went rather well.
Ok moving right along, lets get to gaming! Ughh Media Molecule WHY...I'm so not interested in LBP or tearaway....sorry :/
Ahhhh here we go Kaz is introducing Andrew House....c'mon tell us about Sony <3 Gaikai!!!
After Andrew drops the impressive numbers for the PS4 sales and goes on to talk about the PlayStation Network...interestingly saying the future of PlayStation....which goes hand in hand with What Kaz was mentioning about making products that free the consumer from the conventional bonds.....going back to that tagline of whatever/whenever/whereever. This also reminds me of Sony's E3 conference when Jack Trenton mentioned building worlds without boundaries...
Sony is ever so carefully positioning themselves strategically for a possible console-less future.
Ok so lets get back to the CES presentation, Andrew House mentions That Sony is working tirelessly to bring the awesomeness of the PSN to as many people as possible via THE CLOUD! Even if you don't have a PS3 or PS4 Sony wants you to be able to enjoy the benefits of the PSN powered by THE CLOUD, Sony and Gaikai will bring movies, music, PS games and TV (more on that in a bit) to smart phones, tablets, TV's and eventually PC's.
The new service is called PlayStation Now and PS1, PS2, and PS3 games will be streamed to these devices similar to how Netflix streams movies and TV episodes....getting back to that, Sony Entertainment Network (SEN) is going to offer a cloud based streaming media service that will combine Live TV, Video on Demand and DVR capabilities....sounds like Sony is going to try competing against the likes of Verizon, Cable vision and Dish....quite ambitious!

So with PlayStation Now gamers can opt to rent by title....but wait there's more! Mr. House didn't really mention what the more is but it comes via a subscription...not sure if this subscription is PS+ or a separate subscription.
The PS Now beta begins later this month and they plan to launch the service in the US some time this summer.
There are still many questions I have regarding PS Now, Security, Stability being my two most nagging questions followed by price and finally perks.....there was recently a new Sony patent that was made public that showed a method to add new content to classic PS titles, obviously this along with trophy support added to classic titles would definitely help entice gamers to check out/revisit those classics like Crash Team Racing, Twisted Metal 2 or War of the Monsters!

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