This was an altogether humbler Sony than previous console reveals. One that dispensed with baffling system architecture, foolish, aggrandising boasts and flimsy buzzwords.
Instead, it played things with a straight bat, and the industry's getting a powerful, developer-friendly system that will allow studios to hit the ground running.
Gamers, meanwhile, will benefit from genuinely useful features like instantly accessible demos, fast installs, and the seamless ability to share clips.
Toys for boys
And the games? It was a largely risk-averse selection of the kind of male-focused driving games, shooters and action adventures that get the hardcore palpitating.
You couldn't fault them for their epic production values, but, in truth, most didn't deviate one inch from the blockbuster formula we've been fed for the past five years.
Lead first-party blockbuster Killzone: Shadow Fall
Innovative offerings from LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule, and Braid wunderkind Jonathan Blow showed that Sony is still squarely behind interesting, creative-minded development.
But one area that was conspicuously glossed over during Sony's presentation was how the PS4 will be relevant in a gaming market that increasingly values a flexible ecosystem.
After the two hour briefing, I came away with the distinct feeling that not a whole lot had fundamentally changed.
Hot air
Sony spoke briefly about how the PS Vita, smartphone and tablets would be able to run PS4 games via Remote Play, but I will be extremely surprised if that turns out to be anything more than hot air.
Considering how flaky PS3 Remote Play has been on both the PSP and, latterly, on the PS Vita, it will be a major surprise if Sony can coax the kind of stable, lag-free performance you need in order to make good on the promises of streaming gaming.
Sony's struggling PS Vita was presented as key to PS4's success
As of now, the PS Vita is capable of playing a handful of HD remakes, like God Of War and ICO over remote play, alongside some indie titles available on PSN.
To be brutally honest, the lag can be an intolerable mess even when you're streaming to the Vita in the same room as the PS3 - online it's a disaster.
And what about phones and tablets? There's some half-hearted talk about a SmartGlass-style PlayStation App that allows games to display second screen content on your smart device, but this is likely to be as underwhelming for PS4 as it is currently for Xbox 360 right now.
Now, I'm fairly sure a sizeable chunk of Sony's hardcore following will be pleased that Sony isn't 'diluting' its next generation offering by pandering too much to the 'casuals'. It's making a hardcore games machine, with hardcore games for hardcore gamers.
Ignorance is bliss
Then again, that's a relatively small, and possibly shrinking portion of the total gaming audience these days, and to potentially ignore the possibilities of tapping into that audience and broadening your customer base is a curious decision.
Brave or foolish? I'm not sure, because it's fair to say that Sony has only just opened the doors to what the PS4 does. It would be very stupid to judge the system before Sony has even showed us what the console looks like.
Bungie's Destiny was one of the big third-party releases announced
With E3, Gamescom and even Tokyo Game Show to come before the system ships, there's plenty of time for Sony to drip-feed information about how the system will interact with other devices.
That said, it's a little concerning that the company barely uttered a word in its big reveal about the wider ecosystem of the machine.
At this point, it looks like the PS4 is going to be another expensive box sitting under your TV, delivering expensive content to an audience that's rapidly getting used to freemium and other payment models.
There's no doubt that Sony has a loyal enough audience to support the old ways of doing things, but I can't help feeling that it's a rapidly shrinking one.
Whether Sony can do enough to retain and even grow its audience will be a fascinating story to follow.
