In an exclusive invite only event, hosted in New York City last week, Sony finally revealed some details about the eagerly awaited PS4. I wasn't one of the lucky few to be at the two hour meet but like many millions around the world I watched most of it via the live stream. Just in case you missed it and want to watch the full show, it was uploaded to YouTube by Sony and you can catch it here. The first 45 minutes or so, outlines details about the console and it's potential, with the rest of the show displaying various gameplay from titles that will go on sale at the time of the PS4's launch. Unfortunately we weren't shown the console itself or any pictures of it but they did divulge some system specifications and the new 'DualShock 4' controller, which was already leaked earlier in the week. So apart from some (very basic) information regarding the internal features, there wasn't actually much news about the new console itself. What we did get however, was quite a few speakers discussing the direction and inspiration behind the units potential capabilities and future goals, though they neglected to actually provide any demonstrations about these, so for the most part we're all still in the dark.
I know that I'm late in writing up this article but I hope you'll be understanding, it's been a busier week than usual and I haven't had time to re-watch the live stream, until now that is. I won't be analysing every little detail about the event because that would be borderline insane, not to mention I doubt any of you would want to read a post that long but what I am planning is a nice summary of the show. I will aim to highlight what I believe to be the relevant and significant pieces of data and I'll throw in a few of my thoughts on these subjects because that's what I do ;) Okie doke let's get started, well the first thing that Sony seemed to keep pressing was that in this modern age, lots of everyday gadgets are connected and people are constantly interacting regardless of location. This is very true, between Wi-Fi services and the plethora of mobile devices available to consumers, you can pretty much chat to anyone at anytime and share pictures at the click of a button from anywhere in the world. Sony wants to incorporate this "ease of access" into their new console, whether you're a casual or core gamer, they also mention mobile gaming via the PS Vita and various other Sony devices (smart phones, laptops, tablets etc).
The host was keen to point out that the new console was designed to be "relevant and extraordinary" and they achieved this by using ideas that were "developer led, consumer inspired", which were then "powerfully and thoughtfully engineered by SCE". I don't know about you guys but all I want is a console that works great and won't die from iffy overheating issues *cough* YLOD with my first PS3 *cough*, yes it'll be nice to have all the proposed networking and social media features but at the end of the day, I buy a games console because I want to play video games. Anyway, Sony went on to say they want people to think of the PS4 not just as a "box or console" but as a "leading authority on play" and with that they brought on it's lead system architect, who then discussed some of the consoles inner workings. Apparently this new console has been in the making for the past five years and he too mentions the technology changes that have occurred in the world since the PS3 first came to market. The most noticeable being the fact that almost any new device that is launched these days is expected to have more than one function, gone are days where you buy one item for a single purpose.
With that comment, he very briefly brings up the notorious Cell processors that caused many game developers to have a hard time when creating titles for the the PS3 (he didn't actually say that but we all read between the lines). In contrast this new console was designed by "game creators for game creators" to be a "powerful and accessible system" with a "deep feature set to support the ongoing development" of gaming. The architecture of the PS4 is very similarly to that of a PC but is "supercharged to bring out it's full potential as a gaming platform". The architect then lists the components that will form the PS4 but as a tech noob, please forgive me if describe these incorrectly, there'll be a picture of the slide they showed after this paragraph, in case I lose you completely lol. The CPU will take the form of an X86, here it seems Sony has learnt it's lesson from the PS3 and won't force game developers to have to learn a new programming style. The graphics will be provided by a "highly enhanced PC GPU", again I'm guessing this just makes developers lives easier, which should be good news all round. This is then complimented with "8GB of high speed unified memory" and large mass local storage in the form of a HDD.
System specifications done, the lead architect then shows the room the new PS4 controller, as I mentioned at the start of this article, images of it were already leaked earlier this week but Sony finally released some official images with the event. Any PlayStation fan will know that the original DualShock controller design has been used on every currently released PS console, I personally didn't mind that it never changed but others did. That's not to say I thought it was perfect though, like most people I long for a couple extra buttons for those games which have lots of actions. Take Mass Effect 3 for instance, the X button does three things: run, jump and take cover, all of these actions are vital and it can be a right pain in the a**. Another couple issues I have with the controller are that the L2 and R2 buttons aren't very trigger like at all and the controller grips can cause cramp in your hands. Perhaps these were common complaints because the new controller has a two extra buttons, a small touch pad [in the place of the Start and Select buttons] and seemingly better trigger buttons as well as thicker grips. The last couple new features are the built in headphone jack and mini speaker (or is it a mic?), which I assume will allow players to use their controller like a wireless audio receiver. The proof will be in the playing of course but things are looking good, in addition to those features the controllers also come with a light bar, which like the move controllers, are colour indicated for easier player identification (though I can't say I ever had issues with that TBH).
Apparently the rumble feature has also been enhanced and the latency of the controller has been reduced, not really sure how much of an improvement these are over the existing controller but better and faster responses are always good. These new controllers were designed alongside a new piece of kit, a stereo camera that can "sense the depth of environment in front of it" and "track the 3D position of the controller via the light bar". If I'm brave enough to say it, the camera does look sorta similar to the *whispers* Xbox Kinect *nervously looks around* but of course in the familiar shades of black. I don't know about you guys but I don't own a PS Move kit for the PS3 and TBH for the range of games out there, I'm not sure I'd get my moneys worth. Perhaps someone at Sony has realised that in order to get people interested, these sort of features need to come boxed with the console itself. There's no guarantee that motion controlled based games will become more popular with next gen consoles but at least people have the option of playing them without having to buy (too many) separate devices and this is a good move. [BTW I'm not sure if camera comes with console]
The lead architect then went on to show off a couple new game engines designed by various developers and which were running on an unseen PS4 console. I could try and describe in words what these looked like but if you're interested, you'd be much better off checking out the video recording of the event (footage begins after ~17 mins). The engines do look impressive and I imagine the next generation of consoles will produce some very good looking games with loads more animations occurring on screen at any given moment. The speaker then continues to highlight some of the key principles that Sony wanted to hit when designing this new console, this list comprised of five words: Simple, Immediate, Social, Integrated and Personalised, each being fairly self explanatory. Simple translated to "Consumer orientated, Functionality and Ease of Use", more things happening via the press of a single button, rather than having to dig through tons of menus. Immediate translated to events occurring faster, not just in game but every action involving use of the console. A cool new feature allows the PS4 to be paused and placed in the a PC like standby mode, where gamers can simply pick up exactly where they left off in practically no time at all. The other interesting feature is a Secondary Custom Chip, which allows content to be downloaded and updates made to games, in the background (and even while it's already running) or even when the console is not turned on.
Social translated to new custom hardware which is constantly running in the background, this allows for video compression and de-compression, which enables "seamless uploading of recordings of gameplay". Yes, you read correctly, the PS4 will constantly be recording your gameplay and you can upload any part of it by hitting the 'Share' button, one of the new additions to the controller. The improved PSN services and this hardware will also offer you the chance to watch others as they play live or possibly even host your own live stream sessions. Integrated translated to connecting a multitude of different devices so that "conversations on the PS4 can be carried far from the living room" as well as carrying out other actions that are integral to gaming but in the past might've required you to be on the console i.e. sending out challenges to other players. Personalised translated to a system that learns what you like and what you don't like, this vision aims to predict your future purchases and have them potentially downloaded to the console before you even decide to purchase it, effectively reducing the time before you can play a new title to zero. This new age of everything being digital and pre-orders being made available for download on day one, could see features like this on the PS4, being incredibly popular with customers but I guess we'll find out in time.
The next speaker was the CEO of Gaikai, a cloud gaming service that Sony acquired not too long ago, this suggests that the new console will feature a heavy emphasis on playing titles without having to download chunky files to your local hard drive. He then went on to talk about mobile gaming such as utilising the PS Vita as a mobile controller to play games from your PS4 without needing to be on your TV (similar to the Wii U controller). An interesting concept he brought up was the idea of having all PlayStation titles past, present and future available in an online library via the cloud service. This means that potentially, you could have access to all these games on any mobile device, a tantalising prospect but I'll believe it when I see it. All of this cloud technology mixed with a stronger inclusion of social networking could produce a gaming based network, that we as gamers have never experienced before. It'll be exciting to see where this direction takes the PS4 and if the marketing department is accurate, we should be able to try out these new experiences for ourselves, when the console is launched in Q4 of this year.
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That was about it in terms of details on the actual PS4, like I said earlier they might've have talked about all these new features like the social networking, uploading/downloading while playing and new move based controller but we didn't get to see any of it in action. Heck we don't even know what form the individual games will be sold to us as, I mean will they continue to sell both disk and digital versions or will it eventually all be cloud based? The rest of the event showcased gameplay footage from various titles that will go on sale around the same time as the new console is launched. Again you'll get the most out of these demonstrations by watching the show past the ~45 min mark. The main games that were shown were Killzone: Shadow Fall, Drive Club, Infamous: Second Son, The Witness, Deep Down and Watch _Dogs. The lead architect also showed footage of his game title: Knack, during his bit, which was around the 20 min mark. There were very brief appearances of Diablo 3 and Destiny but I think it'll take you longer to find these segments then it will to watch. You can of course find these individual sections from various locations on YouTube, just in case you don't fancy searching through the whole official two hour show.
Social translated to new custom hardware which is constantly running in the background, this allows for video compression and de-compression, which enables "seamless uploading of recordings of gameplay". Yes, you read correctly, the PS4 will constantly be recording your gameplay and you can upload any part of it by hitting the 'Share' button, one of the new additions to the controller. The improved PSN services and this hardware will also offer you the chance to watch others as they play live or possibly even host your own live stream sessions. Integrated translated to connecting a multitude of different devices so that "conversations on the PS4 can be carried far from the living room" as well as carrying out other actions that are integral to gaming but in the past might've required you to be on the console i.e. sending out challenges to other players. Personalised translated to a system that learns what you like and what you don't like, this vision aims to predict your future purchases and have them potentially downloaded to the console before you even decide to purchase it, effectively reducing the time before you can play a new title to zero. This new age of everything being digital and pre-orders being made available for download on day one, could see features like this on the PS4, being incredibly popular with customers but I guess we'll find out in time.
The next speaker was the CEO of Gaikai, a cloud gaming service that Sony acquired not too long ago, this suggests that the new console will feature a heavy emphasis on playing titles without having to download chunky files to your local hard drive. He then went on to talk about mobile gaming such as utilising the PS Vita as a mobile controller to play games from your PS4 without needing to be on your TV (similar to the Wii U controller). An interesting concept he brought up was the idea of having all PlayStation titles past, present and future available in an online library via the cloud service. This means that potentially, you could have access to all these games on any mobile device, a tantalising prospect but I'll believe it when I see it. All of this cloud technology mixed with a stronger inclusion of social networking could produce a gaming based network, that we as gamers have never experienced before. It'll be exciting to see where this direction takes the PS4 and if the marketing department is accurate, we should be able to try out these new experiences for ourselves, when the console is launched in Q4 of this year.
+2013.png)
That was about it in terms of details on the actual PS4, like I said earlier they might've have talked about all these new features like the social networking, uploading/downloading while playing and new move based controller but we didn't get to see any of it in action. Heck we don't even know what form the individual games will be sold to us as, I mean will they continue to sell both disk and digital versions or will it eventually all be cloud based? The rest of the event showcased gameplay footage from various titles that will go on sale around the same time as the new console is launched. Again you'll get the most out of these demonstrations by watching the show past the ~45 min mark. The main games that were shown were Killzone: Shadow Fall, Drive Club, Infamous: Second Son, The Witness, Deep Down and Watch _Dogs. The lead architect also showed footage of his game title: Knack, during his bit, which was around the 20 min mark. There were very brief appearances of Diablo 3 and Destiny but I think it'll take you longer to find these segments then it will to watch. You can of course find these individual sections from various locations on YouTube, just in case you don't fancy searching through the whole official two hour show.
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