In my younger years I was a huge Sony fan. In the time of Hifi, Walkman and classic Tube TV's Sony was the #1 quality manufacturer, they were the 'Apple' of their time.
Now Sony is in trouble since some years and even the PS3 didn't seem to make Sony happy. Now they announced the PS4 and somehow developers are excited - why?
First: the PS4 is a powerful machine considering its a high end PC but without all the compatibility brakes from Windows PC's. It features 8GB of ultra fast memory. And the graphics card is pretty nice but actually is better than its PC counterparts as games can use it to its full extend without worrying about backwards compatibility of 15 years VGA graphics. It will be actually much faster than comparable PC graphic cards.
But that is not the most important thing, we expect new consoles to be powerful. What is important is that somehow Sony learned from its past mistakes and someone up there at Sony decided to correct all of them.
First Sony announced to make their approval process easier for games - switching to a one step process just like the App store from Apple. For my readers who do not know how the approval process works on XBox360 or PS3 should google it, its a pain in the arse for developers and actually very expensive - impossible to finance by smaller studios.
Speaking about smaller studios: Sony wants to embrace indies (about time!) and is actively seeking them out for partnerships. They also announced the partnership with Unity3d, a good development engine for everyone.
And here is the kicker: usually you need very expensive development kits to create games on consoles, not this time: Unity3d compiles on retail PS4 machines, i.e. everyone owning Unity3d and asking Sony can develop for it and try to get approved. AWESOME.
The future looks suddenly brighter for the next generation of consoles if Microsoft follows Sony's example - from the past news though they seem to screw it up.
And just to make it clear: I play on PS3 - and will order a PS4. I AM a Sony fan!
Update 2013: Sony is back: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/09/sony-2012-earnings/
