PS4 Revealed Today.

[SinisterDeath]

Source

 

After months of anticipation, Sony today announced their next-generation PlayStation console, the PS4. Despite showing off the controller (which we’ve already seen,) Sony continues to be evasive about showing off the console itself, or discussing pricing. We’re guessing they’re saving that for E3 this Summer.

 

Kicking off the presentation with the tagline “Playstation Wants to Win the War Against Reality,” Sony wowed a massive crowd gathered in New York and on the web to see the reveal of the new console with an epic, 2+ hour stage presentation.

The PlayStation 4 is a completely revamped gaming system and ecosystem, running on a “simplified and streamlined” platform, designed for ease of development while providing a tremendous amount of technical power. PS4 Lead System Architect Mark Cerny – producer behind Marble Madness, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic the Hedghog 2 and designer on numerous other popular games showed off the new platform’s architecture, which has more in common with high-end gaming PCs than previous consoles.

 

Similar to PC architecture, the PlayStation 4 will run on a high-end X86-based CPU, with a “highly-enhanced” PC GPU, and 8GB unified GDDR5 RAM, with 176GBps bandwidth. The system will have a powerful 8-core APU, and the CPU and GPU will reside on the same die to enhance performance. In addition, the system will use a hard drive to provide ample storage capacity. There’s no indication if there will be an optical drive, or if will use the Blu-ray format, but I can’t imagine that Sony won’t include one.

To give you an idea of just how powerful the new hardware is, here’s a face rendered using Quantic Dream’s incredible facial animation and shading technologies, running on preliminary PS4 hardware. While the still image is impressive, it’s even more incredible in motion. Could we finally be at the point where console graphics are as good as what you can see in the movies? Probably not, but I’m still excited to see the final hardware in action.

 

 

The new DualShock4 controller is exactly as we saw a few days ago, offering improved analog sticks, enhanced rumble, lower latency, a headphone jack, a small touchpad, and a “Share” button for instantaneous sharing of gameplay videos and other content.

 

 

In addition, the system will come with a stereo depth camera that can detect the position of controllers from across the room.

 

 

To support sharing and social interaction, the PS4 will have a dedicated “always-on” video compression and decompression technology, which will enable instantaneous sharing and spectating of video content directly within games. Plus the console will offer a new “Friends” interface based on real-world friends, with less emphasis on avatars, likely to incorporate relationships from existing social networks (I’m assuming there will be Facebook integration of some sort.)

 

 

Sony continued to drive home the idea that the PlayStation ecosystem will be less about being tied to your couch, and player-centered. With that in mind, they will offer companion apps for tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices, as well as an improved Remote Play capability on PS Vita. According to Sony Gaikai CEO David Perry, “Our longterm goal is to make every PS4 game playable on PS Vita using local Wi-fi.”

Gaikai’s PlayStation Cloud gaming solution will also play a big part of the PS4 experience providing features like an instant free trials of games, and also involved in some way with real-time spectating of your friend’s gameplay. You can even allow other players to take over your controller remotely to help you get through a difficult part of a game.

Unfortunately, Perry also let slip that PS4 hardware won’t support backwards compatibility with PS3 games. Boo! Hiss.

I’m guessing this is to keep the complexity and cost of the system down, but I don’t want to have to keep my old PS3 around in order to play my collection of current-gen games. That said, Sony is looking at ways to play old games from the PS1, PS2 and PS3 via the Gaikai cloud platform, which will roll out in phases over time.

While Sony steered clear of showing actual PS4 hardware, they did introduced a number of new game titles, and showed PS4 demo footage of many of them. Here are a few of the titles coming to the PlayStation 4:

Knack – an action platformer produced by Mark Cerny, the Systems Architect behind the PS4. It wasn’t really clear from the demo what the gameplay will be like, but if anyone is going to get the most out of the PS4 hardware, you’d think it was its own architect.

 

 

KillZone: Shadowfall - an incredible looking new FPS from Guerilla Games, with graphics and physics better than anything I’ve seen. One can only hope the final game looks as good as these in-game screens:

 

Driveclub – a new racer from Evolution Studios, focused on team-based racing. The game will feature asyncronous and real-time group play, and will work with a companion Driveclub app on mobile devices, which will allow you to initiate challenges and view stats. The game is all about an immersive first-person driving experience, and the brief demo footage didn’t disappoint.

 

 

he game will feature insanely detailed cars, every element of which are based on real-world parts and physics. Just check out the detail on this carbon fiber:

 

inFamous: Second Son – Developed by Sucker Punch, the PS4 exclusive game is a sequel of sorts to the popular franchise, featuring an Orwellian future in which police monitor everything, and people with superhuman powers roam the streets.

The Witness - a cool looking exploration/puzzle game from Jonathan Blow, Creator of Braid. Its challenging puzzles are designed to guide you deftly ”from confusion to understanding.” The game will first arrive on PS4 before it hits other platforms.

Media Molecule, creator of LittleBigPlanet demoed their “record your dreams” concept. By combining the PlayStation Move controller with PS4′s powerful hardware, they were able to sculpt items in 3D space with ease. These objects can then be combined to build larger sets and game levels. This wasn’t from a specific game, but still showed off some impressive interactions. I can see this showing up in the next LittleBigPlanet or a similar world-building adventure.

In addition to first-party and indie studios, Capcom showed off its new PS4-specific gaming engine, codenamed “Panta Rhei”, along with its first title, tentatively titled Deep Down.

Square Enix is also on board for the PS4, and showed off its “target quality” for the new platform using its new “Luminous” engine. Though it showed no specific games, only describing the PS4 as “a game developer’s dream,” and mentioned that an as yet unnamed Final Fantasy title was in the works.

UbiSoft showed off real-time gameplay from its hotly-anticipated Watch Dogs running on PS4 dev hardware. We’ve already seen earlier demo footage, but in case you’ve missed it, here it is again:

PC developer Blizzard Entertainment announced a strategic partnership with Sony to launch games on both the PS3 and PS4, with a console version of Diablo III currently under development. Activision is committed as well, and confirmed that Bungie’s epic new FPS Destiny will be released on the PS4 (and the PS3).

It’s clear that Sony means business with the PS4, launching not only a completely new hardware architecture, based on high-end PC gaming, but a variety of new IP and game titles to take full advantage of the enhanced hardware.

While it wasn’t actually part of the festivities, Sony revealed that the PlayStation 4 is expected to hit stores for the “2013 holiday season” on the very last slide they presented. Now that they’ve whet our appetites, I want to see the actual hardware, and find out the pricing and final release date.

Your move, Microsoft. Time to show us what you’ve got up your sleeves with the Xbox 720 – or whatever it’s called.

[SinisterDeath]

So basically, PC wise, this would be the equiovolent of a mid-range Gaming Notebook.. Why? Because notebooks tend to use a GPU on the same dye as the CPU instead of making use of an actual video card. This will probably be a little better, than your mid-range gaming notebooks, as it'll definately not have a complete crap video card gpu on it.

 

And, since they pretty much stated they scrapped the idea of using their prior architecture, and more towards the PC architecture (x86) there should no longer be any complaints about making games for/on it.

 

8GBs of system memory is really staggering considering.. well, my PC only has 6GBs Its using DDR5! Which means  not only can it hold alot of information, it can move it really fast, and, it probably uses that 8GBs between the system,and the GPU.. which is still damned good, it allows for a fairly good potential in the graphical department and will at least, put it at-around the level of what yoru average mid-range PC is today in gaming performance.

 

Top all of that off, they are going to be using the game-streaming software, genkai (that sony aquired last year) for the PS4.

So now we can play Ps1, and Ps2 games, on the Ps4, without having the ps4 to include the hardware component....Easilly reducing the cost of the unit by a good $100. (and the size and the weight... No word on if we'll get to use Ps3 games on it though... hopefully it'll be compatable!)

[Nolder]

I only have two questions.

 

1. Official price?

 

2. Launch titles?

[SinisterDeath]

Launch titles are mentioend in there.

infamous

Killzone are among them.

 

Price? we don't know yet.

WE do know it comes out this holiday season. (next black friday?)

 

My guess? retail $500.

[Mats Spare Hat]

I like the pseudo-backward compatibility aspect, that allegedly it'll work that you can stream a given previous system game from the cloud - In so far that it appears as though backwards compatibility at least held some sort of consideration in design, whether via service or hardware capability.

I don't like that it more or less implies that you'll have to be 'always online' in order to play/for things to work, a la stream. Or that all of the social aspects showcased pretty much tell me that Sony's hoping to data-mine the bejeasus out of gamers in real time, along with everything else that assumption also implies, of course.

On top of that, I still haven't seen any definitive answer on whether or not PS4 will run used games.

Though on the plus side, for being a PS3 late adopter, game prices will probably hit the skids.

[Nolder]

have a feeling I'm going to skip the PS4 as well

[SinisterDeath]

I like the pseudo-backward compatibility aspect, that allegedly it'll work that you can stream a given previous system game from the cloud - In so far that it appears as though backwards compatibility at least held some sort of consideration in design, whether via service or hardware capability.

 

I don't like that it more or less implies that you'll have to be 'always online' in order to play/for things to work, a la stream. Or that all of the social aspects showcased pretty much tell me that Sony's hoping to data-mine the bejeasus out of gamers in real time, along with everything else that assumption also implies, of course.

 

On top of that, I still haven't seen any definitive answer on whether or not PS4 will run used games.

 

Though on the plus side, for being a PS3 late adopter, game prices will probably hit the skids.

 

The only logical way they'll skirt the used-game market, is if they go fully digital, Which simply will not happen this coming generation, the infrastructure in the USA simply wont' allow it. The games are already estimated as 20GB files.... Thats.. alot of bandwidth!

 

Sony data-mining? Depends on yoru exact defintion of that term. (every site effectively does that. Know those ads you get on DM? Those powered by Google? do some research on googles 'datamining' your web-viewing habits some time.)

I think they'll be more benign, over malicious like some people think. But.. thats just me. I believe if they do any form of data mining, it'll be to get you the games you want,and not to bloat you down with ads while playing a game.

 

The whole internet thing though, thats mostly because the majority of people are online these days. And those of us who have no internet, or crappy internet, are in the minority. And the Majority of people, bring in... the majority of the money to Sony. So jsut because the minority can't operate at a 5MB connection, doesn't mean sony's going to cater to the lowest common denominator. If they can serve people who are their average customer, they can provide a supposedly better experience, for the average gamer.

Which unfortunately for those of us who used to be the core video game player means we'll see more social-media, and more brain-dead games for the casual gamer. (hopefully not to the level of Nintendo!!). But hey.. Demographics are shifting. Those who grew up with the PS1, are now in their 30s (or late 20s) And thusly casual gaming starts to become more of a trend the older you get. (life, family, time and all that jazz)

 

Eitherway though, the backwards  compatability does fit in nicely with what they were talking about with the PS3 and Ps2 compatability being nixed, as they were talking about a software implimentation of it eventually.... So perhaps, in the future when t he Ps4 comes out, that service (cloud gaming for ps2 games) could come to the Ps3 as well! Now whether this means you have to buy them on that cloud service, rent, or if its  freely available is entirely up in the air... i'm personaly hoping its part of there Playstation + membership. (free access to all there cloud games.... like netflix streaming.)

[Red2111]

backwards compatability will be a huge issue for me on both ps2 and especially ps3 games. i have the original release 60gb ps3 thats backwards compatable. no complaints from it at all and plenty of games to keep me happy for a good year and 1/2. likely, the original release modle will include backwards compatabiilty to ps3 games,a nd the re-release a few years later (the slim version) will nix the backwards compatability to drive down prices.

 

when ps3 first came out, it was $600, so i'd expect that price point again.

 

 

another big sticking point, i'm an old school stationary gammer who is very anti on having the, what i call, "spy eye" ontop of the console. i dont want to be "observed" while gaming and would rather not have to be "interactive" with my game more than pressing a button and moving a joystick with my thumb. this has been the thing to drive me away from Nintendo. so if their making this interactive gamming required for running the ps4 games, count me out.

 

also - we can has minecraft for ps4?

[Tiinker]

Finaaaaaaalll Fantaasssyyy!

[SinisterDeath]

backwards compatability will be a huge issue for me on both ps2 and especially ps3 games. i have the original release 60gb ps3 thats backwards compatable. no complaints from it at all and plenty of games to keep me happy for a good year and 1/2. likely, the original release modle will include backwards compatabiilty to ps3 games,a nd the re-release a few years later (the slim version) will nix the backwards compatability to drive down prices.

Well, as stated the backwards copmatability for PS1 & 2 are confirmed via that Genkai type service. (meaning the game is played escentially remotely/streamed)

 

Ps3 isn't confirmed yet, and I somehow doubt the ps4 willl even include it. I don't even think  they can do a software implimentation on it... Perhaps t hat Genkai service will do ps3 on that? or...they'll just let you remote play your ps3 on your ps4? Dunno. I'm guessing though, that any ps3 network titles you own, will work on the ps4. (possibly.)

 

Also, I to  have an original release Ps3 that cost me $600.

:bigrin: Dummies can keep upgrading theres to 500GBs for all I care. I can to! Stupid people thinking they are getting a better system because it has more capacity! They don't know you cna buy your own notebook hard drive and instlal it in the ps3 yourself!

 

 

whe

when ps3 first came out, it was $600, so i'd expect that price point again.

I think its going to be around $500 honestly. One of the thing sthey wanted to do, was get the price cheap enough to not deter people like the $600 price point did. And just some quick comparisons, the ps4 is only 50% better than the ps3! (the ps3 supposedly had 1.2 or 1.5Tflops of computing power, the ps4 supposedly 2.0Tflops.) The memory(ram) is the hugest upgrade...

 

So if you consider that its approximately 50% better, and the current ps3 costs $300, 50% of 300 = $450. (very rough arguement there I know..) $500 could easilly hit those marks... (hell blue-ray players can cost as low as $50 now! And we don't even know if it has one!)

 

another big sticking point, i'm an old school stationary gammer who is very anti on having the, what i call, "spy eye" ontop of the console. i dont want to be "observed" while gaming and would rather not have to be "interactive" with my game more than pressing a button and moving a joystick with my thumb. this has been the thing to drive me away from Nintendo. so if their making this interactive gamming required for running the ps4 games, count me out.

If its anything like Ps3, they'll have non-move options, and ps-move options. Only the really gimmicky children like games, absolutely require it.

That said. You should try the sword-fighting move game.

 

also - we can has minecraft for ps4?  

 Well supposedly we get a version of a minecraft like game on it!

 

Finaaaaaaalll Fantaasssyyy!

Tech Demo unfortunately.

 

i'm still hoping for a new Legacy of Kain video game. Supposedly Eidos bought the domain Warfornosgoth.com (not up yet) as well as a Wolfenstien domain.... /sigh.

[Tsukibana]

What did you guys read??

 

"Unfortunately, Perry also let slip that PS4 hardware won’t support backwards compatibility with PS3 games. Boo! Hiss."

[Red2111]

wait a minute ... so this new system is going to be incompatable with the current game disks?! what sort of weak sauce is that shiz?!

 

i'm 100% agaisnt not owning the phsyical game and only havign it in data form held on some hub or hard drive. if your hub gets corrupted or the hard drive crashes, poof goes all the games. its one reason i still buy phsycial books and CDs.

 

also - that meand hookingmy ps up to the internet, and into PSN. PSN isn't exactly hacker free, so i'm not one to want to put my info on that server. and i'd rather not have my console hooked into the web for others to access it or for ps to obvserve my playing and watching trends.

 

and if it has a built in motion sensor (liek the type their talking abtou putting on DVRs that can sense you on the couch and see itno your home) no thank you. i can just imagine the abuse by the government and i'd rather not take the risk of soemone hacking it to watch me and looking into my home. theres a reason i dont have a web cam and keep the sensor bar on my Wii unplugged even when its turned off.

 

 

*ears perk up* minecraft like game. i hope its not a DL only ... probably will be though *has a sad from having one of the ultimate happees*

 

 

do you think they'll continue to release ps3 game titles though? they only just stopped releasing ps2 game titles last year.

[Mats Spare Hat]

Kotaku has a great spread of articles of all things PS4: http://kotaku.com/

Apparently PS4 games can/will be playable without being online, which is nice, but obviously if you're wanting to play ps3/ps2/ps1 games via stream...

Gaikai was also designed with streaming ps3 games in mind, thus it makes sense to assume those titles would be available, via stream.

_____

And by data-mining I meant that Sony will be more than happy to compile that data, sell it to third parties, attempt to increase market value/leverage, attract investment of other parties to support their Cloud et al. - I don't mean in a completely nefarious nutty sort of way, but a the same time maybe just a little...What's next, Chick-fil-A popups latenight in the corner of the screen while I'm streaming a game?

I dislike the practice, I just want to game *shrugs.

[Red2111]

re-blue ray. HDMI makes the enhanced graphic with blue ray obsolete on the gamming consoles imo. that, and the new ness of the technology and the HDVD/Blue Ray wars are the only reason ps included it on the ps3.

 

hdmi and fiber optics are now standard on all tv models, adn this is discounting the advancements in 3D gamming. (perosnally i dont fancy 3D gamming and will not be forced to wear glasses to watch TV or play a game) besides, thsoe movies give me & bubba headaches.

 

my guess is that ps4 will drop the blue-ray selling point and move towards 3D gamming and include a 3D Blueray player. in otherwords, keeping blueray for video watching, but dropping it game wise in favor for the more advanced optics as blueray has peaked in terms of enhancement. and using "3D capabilities" as their special sellign point for non-gammers.

 

back in 07, they did this with the ps3 by saying "for the price of the cheapest blueray player, you can get a blue-ray player AND a gamming consle for an outstadningly low price of only $600's!!" after all, they have to have some way for kids to convince their parents why its a worth while investment

[Tsukibana]

 

 

Red211: "i'm 100% agaisnt not owning the phsyical game and only havign it in data form held on some hub or hard drive. if your hub gets corrupted or the hard drive crashes, poof goes all the games. its one reason i still buy phsycial books and CDs."

 

Amen, sister

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

re-blue ray. HDMI makes the enhanced graphic with blue ray obsolete on the gamming consoles imo. that, and the new ness of the technology and the HDVD/Blue Ray wars are the only reason ps included it on the ps3.

 

hdmi and fiber optics are now standard on all tv models, adn this is discounting the advancements in 3D gamming. (perosnally i dont fancy 3D gamming and will not be forced to wear glasses to watch TV or play a game) besides, thsoe movies give me & bubba headaches.

 

my guess is that ps4 will drop the blue-ray selling point and move towards 3D gamming and include a 3D Blueray player. in otherwords, keeping blueray for video watching, but dropping it game wise in favor for the more advanced optics as blueray has peaked in terms of enhancement. and using "3D capabilities" as their special sellign point for non-gammers.

 

back in 07, they did this with the ps3 by saying "for the price of the cheapest blueray player, you can get a blue-ray player AND a gamming consle for an outstadningly low price of only $600's!!" after all, they have to have some way for kids to convince their parents why its a worth while investment

 

Umm...

 

HDMI is just the connector that allows HD gaming on an HD screen.

Blu-ray is about capacity.

 

Some of the games out on it? 50GBs.

not possible on a single dvd.

They are already talking 20GB games for the  PS4. (as an average)

 

Without blu-ray, you can get the data, on your ps4 aside from downloading it. (and do you want to download a 20GB+ file everytime you buy a game?)

[Haxorsist]

If you missed the announcement, here is an abridged version

 

[Red2111]

 

 

 

re-blue ray. HDMI makes the enhanced graphic with blue ray obsolete on the gamming consoles imo. that, and the new ness of the technology and the HDVD/Blue Ray wars are the only reason ps included it on the ps3.

 

hdmi and fiber optics are now standard on all tv models, adn this is discounting the advancements in 3D gamming. (perosnally i dont fancy 3D gamming and will not be forced to wear glasses to watch TV or play a game) besides, thsoe movies give me & bubba headaches.

 

my guess is that ps4 will drop the blue-ray selling point and move towards 3D gamming and include a 3D Blueray player. in otherwords, keeping blueray for video watching, but dropping it game wise in favor for the more advanced optics as blueray has peaked in terms of enhancement. and using "3D capabilities" as their special sellign point for non-gammers.

 

back in 07, they did this with the ps3 by saying "for the price of the cheapest blueray player, you can get a blue-ray player AND a gamming consle for an outstadningly low price of only $600's!!" after all, they have to have some way for kids to convince their parents why its a worth while investment

 

Umm...

 

HDMI is just the connector that allows HD gaming on an HD screen.

Blu-ray is about capacity.

 

Some of the games out on it? 50GBs.

not possible on a single dvd.

They are already talking 20GB games for the  PS4. (as an average)

 

Without blu-ray, you can get the data, on your ps4 aside from downloading it. (and do you want to download a 20GB+ file everytime you buy a game?)

 

ah, my mistake. i thought blueray was about video quality. which is why i was talking about HDMI

[Knivy]

It is about video quality, but it is the quantity of data that allows the high quality, not the medium itself.

[SinisterDeath]

It is about video quality, but it is the quantity of data that allows the high quality, not the medium itself.

Aye

 

The blu-ray is the meat that makes up the hamburger, the quality of it.

HDMI is the chef.

[Mats Spare Hat]

Well, hot dog.


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-21-sony-tells-eurogamer-playstation-4-will-not-block-used-games

[sVieira151]

backwards compatability will be a huge issue for me on both ps2 and especially ps3 games. i have the original release 60gb ps3 thats backwards compatable. no complaints from it at all and plenty of games to keep me happy for a good year and 1/2. likely, the original release modle will include backwards compatabiilty to ps3 games,a nd the re-release a few years later (the slim version) will nix the backwards compatability to drive down prices.

 

when ps3 first came out, it was $600, so i'd expect that price point again.

 

 

another big sticking point, i'm an old school stationary gammer who is very anti on having the, what i call, "spy eye" ontop of the console. i dont want to be "observed" while gaming and would rather not have to be "interactive" with my game more than pressing a button and moving a joystick with my thumb. this has been the thing to drive me away from Nintendo. so if their making this interactive gamming required for running the ps4 games, count me out.

 

also - we can has minecraft for ps4?

 

I read something today that says it focuses on personalisation. They said that you can go offline completely if the whole "social" thing ain't for you. As for backwards compatibility, they are working on this "cloud" thing that will allow all prior playstation games playable (although that will likely mean you will need to connect to the internet). Or something. 

 

EDIT: Ah, yeah. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-21-playstation-4-does-not-require-an-internet-connection

[Red2111]

@ Mat - are you serious, they were actually gonna try to prevent 2nd hand re-sale of games? what that sounds liek is they were tryign to get the data content of a game disk registered to a single console and then prevent it from being ranon any other consoles at all. which is obsurd! what if you get a new console, or you borrow a game from a friend, or people with game-fly accounts, or you take a game over to a friends house for some true interactive gamming.

 

 

 

 

thsi comment sums up what i got from that article

 

Did he just call me anti-social for not trusting a machine with a built-in camera and an always-on internet connection?

 

i'm one of the 20% of ps3 owners that never connect to the interent with my console. any updates i get, are from new games. its not that i cant connect or dont have the ability to; my modem runs on cable/broadband at the house and hase a secure wifi ability. its a weak signal accourding to my laptop because its on the other side of the house, but it still reaches the ps3 if i wanted ot connect it.

 

i'm just not into iinteractive gamming and dont WANT to be plugged in 24/7. and like a few others said. i'm old school; if i want to play multi-player, i want the other person in the room with me. i wish there were more console co-op games that we're shooters and sports games *sigh* i mean, RPGs for instance, most of them are perfect for co-op, but only have the online co-op as the flamming option.

 

its not that i'm anti-social; i just dont feel the need or want every damn piece of electronics i own to be connected to the internet and plugged in 24/7; i even turn off my internal modem for my laptop when i shut her down after use so she's not always connected.

 

 

another point, he said you "may want to keep it connected though" does this mean all systems updates will be via Downloads instead of comming as auto updates on new releases if the game finds your system isn't updated? does this alos mean you have to connect it t the internet first for "registering" before you can use the console?

[SinisterDeath]

Red, he said that it isn't going to lock. Games to your console, so registering isn't going to happen.

 

That said updates would still have to be on disks, for the simple reason, that some games require the most updated version of the OS to operate.

 

All that aside, what makes me uneasy about the social media aspect, that I read today... is that they are supposedly going to. Predownload games, that they think you'll buy, so when you buy it, it'll be available to play asap. (This on top of playing while its downloading.)

[Mats Spare Hat]

Red,

If you're looking for a fun split-screen co-op shooter that can be played offline: Borderlands 2