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One year ago today, PlayStation 4 launched in North America. It arrived on these shores two weeks later. The build-up really couldn't have gone better for Sony; the preceding year had been one of good fortune, smart marketing, aggressive PR and rampant opportunism for PlayStation as its chief competitor, Microsoft's Xbox, had blundered from one hubristic public relations catastrophe to the next. To cap it all off, it had emerged that PS4 had a significant technical advantage, too, with faster memory and a more powerful graphics processor. Sony's executives could scarcely believe their luck; after the tough PS3 years, they had been offered an open goal.It's a familiar narrative, but the machine's first anniversary offers an opportunity to take stock of the story since then. How well has PlayStation 4 served its users - and how well has Sony served PS4 - since 15th November 2013? (We'll write a similar report card for Xbox One's first anniversary next week.)
The PS4's launch set the tone for its first year: the games weren't stellar, but it didn't seem to matter. The first-party line-up was thin - Knack was dire, Killzone Shadow Fall was dazzling but hollow, DriveClub was delayed - but Sony was carrying so much momentum and goodwill, nothing could stop it. Gamers weren't even complaining too loudly that online gaming had been locked behind the admittedly good-value PlayStation Plus subscription - something Andrew House, Mark Cerny and Shuhei Yoshida must be pinching themselves about to this day. The only bum note was the quickly disintegrating rubber of the DualShock 4's sticks (still a sore point).
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