Sony, stop being ridiculous and announce the PlayStation 4 Slim

Here are some pictures of the PlayStation 4 Slim. You can look at them if you want.

You used to be able to watch the system boot up, but Eurogamer took down the footage "after taking legal advice."

Here’s a video of the system being unboxed, if you want to watch that. Thanks for the tip, Technobuffalo.

You can read details about the system's new controller. There used to be a video, but Sony had it taken down.

"At the time of writing this article I have inspected a PS4 Slim, hooked it up to a TV, turned it on, and played a game on it," Let's Play Video Games' Laura Kate Dale wrote. "It features no optical port, a slot for easy hard drive replacement, labelled power and eject buttons, and a redesigned controller."

I mean, it’s pretty safe to say this thing exists, right?

"I took it to a branch of CEX, where it was tested by their staff who offered to purchase the unit from me for just over £300," she continued. "Their stock system has an entry for the console, which appears in store and on their website. I did not sell the unit."

The system will almost surely be announced in two weeks, along with the upcoming PlayStation Neo. But people have seen it, taken pictures of it and there is video of the hardware in the wild. People are buying them, and other people are selling them. The fact that Sony still refuses to admit that it exists is deeply, deeply silly.

It’s understandable that there was a plan in place to announce the system and its features, and Sony would love to pretend that this plan is still relevant in some dim way. It’s possible the PlayStation 4 Slim has some unknown features that still need to be poured in via firmware, but the company’s lack of willingness to talk about the system we know so much about in any terms is ridiculous.

I've been doing this for a long time, and I can't think of another "leak" that was this extensive. The amount of images and video that have been published by the press and fans before the manufacturer has even hinted the system existed is unprecedented.

I honestly can’t think of another way to put it. The situation is laughable at this point. This isn’t a leaked picture or two; this isn’t a blurry picture of a plastic case taken in a factory. This is a system that has been documented five ways to oblivion and used by members of the press, and Sony still can’t bring itself to admit that it exists.

"The video games industry is a little ridiculous when it comes to verifiable leaks, with a solid insistence that planned reveals change for nobody, regardless of whether continued silence is making the people in charge of those reveals look foolish," Dale wrote.

I agree, and Sony could humanize themselves by saying that yes, this system exists and yes, it has more surprises in store for us at the upcoming reveal event.

Maintaining radio silence while issuing takedown notices to outlets that show the system just confirms the reality of the hardware while giving up any shred of control or influence Sony may have had on the news cycle.

It’s time to put down the lawyers and write a simple press release.