What We Know about the PS4
By Ed Beers
In many things such as science, politics, war, and other fields, there are known knowns, and there known unknowns... And then there's the League here to give you a better look, a few days after announced, at the known and unknown of the PS4. For those who don't know, some time ago Sony announced that they would hold a live stream event to announce 'the future of gaming' on February 20th. From that point on everyone assumed it would be the first announcement of the next Playstation system. And to every journalist's disappointment, that's just what they announced... Okay no that was mean sorry. Point is they announced that the Playstation 4 exists, what the controller looks like, the focus they're going with, and what the machine holds power wise... roughly. They also showed off some cut scenes and demos for possible launch or near launch titles. But there are still things, even after they announcement that we just don't know, so let's get started.
-The Known
Considering all the little they could have released we know a good amount about the Playstation 4, from perspective titles, to the hardware and control set up. Even, when reading between what the developers have said, what they hope to do with the this new system. Let us start with the very important, really exciting for game developers less so for gamers less their well informed part, the specs. What we have been told so far the specs stand:
Well since we're on the details part, let's take a look at what they showed as the new controller (shown on the top of the page next to the old PS3 controller). Instead of making a small controller with a little this little that to later slap all the accessories you can think of on your bill later, they're put all the accessories together in one controller. The new Dualshock 3, you get a similar build design wise, the sticks aligned with each other and the four iconic buttons aligned with the D-pad. But in the middle, where we all expect the start, select, and playstation button, we are instead given the playstation button, a small non-screened touchpad, and a microphone. On either side of the touch pad are small buttons labels Share and Options. The share button is so that you can record and share how good or awful you are at playing a video game, they did not get into what the options button really does but that might come down to what game you're playing. Now before you start panicking about 'the end of start and select buttons', just know that I do not plan to get into that in such an early stage, so you'll have to wait till E3 or later. But back to what all this kitchen sink controller has. Along with the touchpad, and microphone, the Dualshock 4 will also have a headphones jack, six-axis like motion control, as well as an all too familiar, move like light on the back which will be picked up by a Playstation 4 Eye, which is totally not a kinect.
Now I can almost hear you ask, 'Ed, why is your last name Beers is it a mistranslation?' Well I'm not getting into that so I'm going instead into what the share button might really mean. See a while back, Sony purchased for reasons then unknown to us, the second largest cloud gaming service in Japan by name of Gaikai. With this, the Playstion 4 is promising to have a strong focus on the idea of streaming. I bring this up because of the mention of the Share button earlier, for the recording of you slamming a boss down, or failing to go up a ladder, doesn't just sit there on your PS4 taking up space that could be used for games. Instead when you hit share if you're online, you can throw that right up onto the web for others' enjoyment straight up streamed off your box. But it doesn't stop there, while they were not able to prove this during a press conference they suggested the idea of not just sitting around waiting for a game bought from the PSN to download for 2 or 3 days, that you're streaming the video game itself, and as such can jump right into the game as it's downloading. This, is a fun idea if for no other reason than the thought of video games buffering but, if used smartly, this could be the end of how we treat the idea of demos forever. No more does a little side team pick one or two levels to put together, selecting what powers you may or may not have in the full game, and instead such as they have with the current Playstion Plus style, just play the first hour or so of gameplay straight streaming. In an even bigger promise, despite the Vita not being able to play PS2 games yet, they have the hope that they could place the whole playstation game library, from 1-4, on a playstation specific cloud allowing you to stream whatever game you want on one single system making it, not really backwards compatible but it's a nice gesture.
An even better gesture though came a few days after the original conference in an announcement from Sony proper. Specifically the head of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, putting some disturbing all be it unlikely rumors that the PS4 would be online only, or not allow playing of used games. This is completely NOT the case it can and will play used games from discs, and you will be allowed to play this stream heavy system offline. So you can relax, stop biting your nails, and demand the new Xbox to confirm that they'll promise the same.
With all that known tech and what it may mean out of the way, the following posts will be about the Games announced, and lastly the unknowns of the systems and what I think may come to pass.
- Main Processor: Single Chip custom processor
- CPU: x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 Cores
- GPU: 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-gen Radeon based graphics engine
- Memory: GDDR5 8GB
- Hard Disk: Built-in
- Optical Drive: Blu-Ray 6X Speed CAV, DVD 8X Speed CAV
- Input/Output: Super Speed USB (USB 3.0) Port, AUX port
- Communication: Ethernet (10/100/1000 Base-T), IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR
- AV output: HDMI, Analog AV, Optical Digital output
Well since we're on the details part, let's take a look at what they showed as the new controller (shown on the top of the page next to the old PS3 controller). Instead of making a small controller with a little this little that to later slap all the accessories you can think of on your bill later, they're put all the accessories together in one controller. The new Dualshock 3, you get a similar build design wise, the sticks aligned with each other and the four iconic buttons aligned with the D-pad. But in the middle, where we all expect the start, select, and playstation button, we are instead given the playstation button, a small non-screened touchpad, and a microphone. On either side of the touch pad are small buttons labels Share and Options. The share button is so that you can record and share how good or awful you are at playing a video game, they did not get into what the options button really does but that might come down to what game you're playing. Now before you start panicking about 'the end of start and select buttons', just know that I do not plan to get into that in such an early stage, so you'll have to wait till E3 or later. But back to what all this kitchen sink controller has. Along with the touchpad, and microphone, the Dualshock 4 will also have a headphones jack, six-axis like motion control, as well as an all too familiar, move like light on the back which will be picked up by a Playstation 4 Eye, which is totally not a kinect.
Now I can almost hear you ask, 'Ed, why is your last name Beers is it a mistranslation?' Well I'm not getting into that so I'm going instead into what the share button might really mean. See a while back, Sony purchased for reasons then unknown to us, the second largest cloud gaming service in Japan by name of Gaikai. With this, the Playstion 4 is promising to have a strong focus on the idea of streaming. I bring this up because of the mention of the Share button earlier, for the recording of you slamming a boss down, or failing to go up a ladder, doesn't just sit there on your PS4 taking up space that could be used for games. Instead when you hit share if you're online, you can throw that right up onto the web for others' enjoyment straight up streamed off your box. But it doesn't stop there, while they were not able to prove this during a press conference they suggested the idea of not just sitting around waiting for a game bought from the PSN to download for 2 or 3 days, that you're streaming the video game itself, and as such can jump right into the game as it's downloading. This, is a fun idea if for no other reason than the thought of video games buffering but, if used smartly, this could be the end of how we treat the idea of demos forever. No more does a little side team pick one or two levels to put together, selecting what powers you may or may not have in the full game, and instead such as they have with the current Playstion Plus style, just play the first hour or so of gameplay straight streaming. In an even bigger promise, despite the Vita not being able to play PS2 games yet, they have the hope that they could place the whole playstation game library, from 1-4, on a playstation specific cloud allowing you to stream whatever game you want on one single system making it, not really backwards compatible but it's a nice gesture.
An even better gesture though came a few days after the original conference in an announcement from Sony proper. Specifically the head of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, putting some disturbing all be it unlikely rumors that the PS4 would be online only, or not allow playing of used games. This is completely NOT the case it can and will play used games from discs, and you will be allowed to play this stream heavy system offline. So you can relax, stop biting your nails, and demand the new Xbox to confirm that they'll promise the same.
With all that known tech and what it may mean out of the way, the following posts will be about the Games announced, and lastly the unknowns of the systems and what I think may come to pass.
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