There’s a ton of new details about the upcoming PlayStation 4, straight from this years GDC.
Details on the system hardware, the bits and bobs that whizz around inside it to make the games work, the controller, the social features and much more have all been discussed, so we’re bringing down to a bite-size form to make it easier for you to digest, because damn it’s a load of information.
What the PlayStation 4 is about
- The PlayStation 4 is aiming to be the “central device in the living room” providing all your entertainment needs in one device.
- “Core gamers are our primary audience,” that’s straight from Sony, so don’t worry about #1 turning the PS4 into an Xbox…
- The PlayStation 4 is built around 5 core principles: Simple, Immediate, Social, Integrated, Personalised. This is something that Sony were heavy on showing off during the meeting back in February.
- Coming with a “very large hard drive.” Presumably to future proof the console and ensure that nobody will have an excuse not to download digital games.
What’s inside the beast
- PlayStation 4 will come with 8GB 256 bit GDDR5 RAM. Basically it’s really good for gaming and you’d typically find these components in high-end, expensive and reliable gaming PC’s.
- The PlayStation 4 will feature a PC-like CPU based on the 64-bit x86 arch. Won’t be a headache with the electric bill as it’s designed consume less power, less heat, feature 8 CPU cores with 8 HW threads. As well as all that techno-jargon, it comes with 2MiB L2 cache per 4 cores. (In all honesty, I have no idea what any of the above means.)
- Developers will be able to debug their PlayStation 4 code just as they would their PC code, making the creation of masterpiece games easier.
- The PlayStation 4 developer environment is set on Windows 7 with the tools ready and raring to go with Visual Studio 2010 and 2012, making it easier to get stuck into the development of titles.
- The PlayStation 4 has its own ‘shader language’ which is apparently similar to HLSL and will allow developers to go beyond what is available with DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0
The user experience
- A new user interface designed with the user in mind, based on the five PlayStation 4 core principles: Simple, Immediate, Integrated, Social and Personalised.
- PlayStation App will allow you to make a purchase from your smart-phone and start the download even when you’re not there. Once you get back to your console you can start playing the content that has already been downloaded so far.
- More friends! In the effort to become the social gaming platform, the friend limit is being increased. The PlayStation 3 allows up to 100 contacts in your friend list, the PS4 is going to beat it.
- Streaming and sharing content is easy for both the user and the developers. It’s all done on the PlayStation 4, developers don’t need to do special things to their game, the PlayStation 4 takes care of it all as soon as the player presses the ‘share’ button.
- User interface is designed to give you all the information you could want in one simple sweep. Uncluttered and organised without being bombarded by ad’s…(Microsoft…)
- You can use your real name instead of ‘ballsinmouth552’! If you link to your social networks (Facebook, Twitter etc) the system will automatically import your real life, non-digital and non-embarassing name. Completely optional though, if you don’t want people to know your name, or you just like to be called ‘princessfairycake99’ that’s cool, it’s your choice.
The DualShock 4, Remote Play and PlayStation Eye
- The PlayStation 4 controllers will be able to charge, even when the console is turned off.
- The L2 and R2 triggers have been redesigned to prevent slippage and to make them more comfortable to use.
- The face buttons on the DualShock 4 are going to be digital instead of analogue, apparently nobody used the feature with the DualShock 3. (Basically, the PS3 face buttons could be pressed lightly, or harder. Depending on how much pressure you applied to the buttons, that would correspond to your actions in-game, e.g accelerating in Grand Theft Auto IV.)
- The PlayStation button is now the Share button, just give it a tap and you’re ready to show your friends your epic fails.
- Instead of the standard ‘Start’ and ‘Select’ buttons, the DualShock 4 is coming with ‘Options.’
- The touchpad will allow you click it, the resolution is 1920×900.
- The PlayStation 4 controller’s light bar can be used for in games, so if you’re low on health it could flash red, if you’re in a racing game, the lights could go green etc
- When playing local multiplayer the light bars on the controllers will indicate player numbers.
- Headset jack built into the DualShock 4.
- The PlayStation 4 will come with the PlayStation Eye with the aim of enhancing the user experience with its high sensitivity dual colour cameras with a resolution of 1280×800 at 60Hz.
- The PS4 Eye will use an exclusive SCE Connector. In other words, you break it, you’re buggered and you’re probably paying more than you would for a simple USB cable…
- Remote Play is once again handled by the hardware, developers don’t need to make any special adjustments. Can be done with the flick of a button and is standard for all games.
That’s you lot for now, no doubt there will new details on the PlayStation 4 over the next few weeks, in fact, too many! We’ll do our best to cover what we can and make it easy for you to digest, because damn some of that techno-jargon just goes over our heads.
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Impressed with what the PlayStation 4 has to offer so far? Any features you’d like to see brought in/taken away? Let us know down below.