Same Show Different Company

The new apple iphone has been announced, and underwhelmed everyone who saw it. That wouldn’t be too bad, but Sony had a big conferenced right after that to present their new version of the PS4, which did almost the exact same thing. It has been an odd thing, and guys like me have been trying to figure out why.

For a quick recap, the iPhone 7 is a new model of the famous iPhone. The new phone has a more powerful processor, and a bunch of extra new items. The really big news involved the cameras, the lack of headphone jack, and the price. Then they had Super Mario.

The cameras are a big thing now. As a smartphone photography hobbyist, I admit to looking at it with more interest than I should. It has 12 megapixels, films at 1080p, and allows for Raw format for lightroom and photoshop use. The camera allows for a better shot in a dark environment, and even deals with difficult lighting better. The iPhone 7 Plus has an extra camera that has a different angle for a better shot, it is being promoted as telephoto, but that's just not true. There are higher formats, and better colors. I hope that it can deal with reds and pinks better.

There is no headphone jack. Instead the USB charger also has an adapter for headphones. For an easier time there is a device that lets you split the two, but that’s for extra money. Even worse, Apple is trying to get rid of the standard headphones for a brand new $150 wireless kind. It’s exactly what you think they are, expensive headphones that hook up only to your ears. At full charge, the new earphones will last 5 hours.

Then we come to the price. The 7 on its own is somewhere around $700. The new 7 plus is nearly $800. Then you add on the new headphones at $150, and other accessories that might pop up. So you are spending nearly a thousand dollars for something that doesn’t seem worth it. The upgrade is nice, but is a slight change compared to the iPhone 1 to 2.

During the show, Shigeru Miyamoto came on stage and presented Super Mario Run. It’s a runner game starring Mario and the mushroom kingdom. There are levels, high score challenges, and mario never stops running. You only control his jumping, and some arrows show how to make him changed directions. Many have said this is the game Nintendo feared to make.

More details emerged showing that it was a timed exclusive for the Apple Handheld market. Since Miyamoto appeared on stage, it was obvious that Nintendo had some form of deal going with apple on this product. The obvious choice is that Apple paid for this game to be made. It’s a really weird thing, and not something I am happy about, but Nintendo has been going through hard times. The president of Nintendo did say they were ready to do things they hadn’t considered before, and this appears to be a part of it.

Not even an hour later Sony has a presentation on their own, and it was eerily similar. There was a slightly bumped up model. A plus model with new visuals, but not much else. The journalists over it had a hard time trying to promote the new consoles. The worst was the expense of the entire thing.

The conference kicked off by announcing a new slim version of the Playstation 4. As you can guess, it's smaller and has some slight improvements to keep it cool. That is pretty much all that it is.

The big deal was the new Pro model, which was promoted during E3 as the Neo. It is literally the PS4 with new graphical abilities. The PS4 couldn’t do 4K television, and even had a hard time keeping up with 1080p at 60 frames per second. This new model allows for HDR televisions, and can upscale to 4K. The animations are the same, the relative graphics are the same, but it can now be played on an expensive TV. But this comes at a cost of Frames Per Second, where if you are lucky it stays at 30FPS.

Journalists had a hard time explaining how cool all of it was. The brights had more details, and although it was obviously not actual 4K, at least it looked nice. The average viewer won’t care. Which brings up the question on how the average viewer would buy it?

The price of the Pro is about $400, then we have the price of the TV needed to do HDR and 4K, which is another $1000 at least. Then we have the Playstation VR experience which adds another $400 to the collection. Finally only a few games are being offered for these amazing graphics. It appears that they may be aiming at rich people with no actual sense of taste. If you want it even worse, the new PS4 will not allow 4k Blu Ray discs, so there is no reason to get it for entertainment purposes.

I don’t consider myself perfect at the viewing market, but I got tired of watching the videos show random jags or pop ups at every corner. The designers went for a good looking tree, but the leaves would appear randomly as you walked toward it. The more details in sand seemed to be a far cry for help with making things look nicer. It honestly felt like a slight upgrade for fools.

Or perhaps there is another reason. One that destroys the image of gaming with consoles. Sony upgraded because they were competing with PC’s. In the article for PC Gamer, Sony admits the upgrade is to capture PC fans who bought the console. The lapsed gamers could get better graphics, and thus left for the greener pastures of the computer. This wouldn’t be a problem, but the Playstation was supposed to slowly replace the PC as the go to computer. Microsoft jumped in to stop Sony from edging into the market. So literally the two major console makers are not winning, and having a hard time competing with the product they are trying to replace.

The Graphics card makers, and Processor makers, and other PC parts designers come out with a new part at least once a year. This means that they outperform a console quickly. This particular console season, it has been outperformed even out of the box. So we end up with a really awkward attempt to make it look like these consoles are still powerful, with a brand new upgraded Pro model.

Apple has been regularly updating every year, and has shown signs of lag with their new and cool skills. Like the consoles competing for the PC, it appears they have met the edge of the iPhone abilities without finding a totally new way to do things. When the presentations are done back to back, you see the problems pretty clearly. It seems almost like PC is taking over the console market instead of vice versa.

Special thanks to the Maximum RD crew for talking about this with me.