“Sony Corp. (6758) unveiled the PlayStation 4, its first video-game console in seven years, introducing new cloud and social-media features as Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai seeks to reignite sales.
Andrew House, CEO of Sony’s PlayStation unit, announced the product yesterday at an event inNew York. Consumers will be able to see what friends are playing and take over games in progress from others, and will eventually be able to stream older titles. The console will go on sale for the year-end holiday season, Sony said, without announcing prices.
The PlayStation 4 makes its debut amid an industry shift toward mobile play on smartphones and tablets, raising the question of whether gamers will shell out several hundred dollars for a new device. The console will allow self- publishing, mimicking the open architecture of smartphones that encourages smaller developers to create titles for the growing ranks of casual players. Sony fell as much as 2.1 percent.
“This enhanced PlayStation experience is simply not revolutionary to overcome big disruptions facing the industry,” Amir Anvarzadeh, a Singapore-based manager for Asia equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. (BGCP), said in an e-mail. “Sony’s heavy emphasis on the social aspect of PS4 seems a bit too ambitious to deliver on.”
