By Liam Murphy
Wednesday 20th February 2013, almost 8 years since Sony announced the PS3, and everyone was ready for “the future of Play”… And they're still ready, and waiting (not so patiently as before).
With no console design, no finalised hardware specs, no price point and no specific release date (except the ambiguous statement of “Holiday 2013”), the Sony team took their years of PR and produced the longest presentation of filler ever seen. Two hours later and numerous developers pulled out of hats to perform on stage, here is everything we know.
Wednesday 20th February 2013, almost 8 years since Sony announced the PS3, and everyone was ready for “the future of Play”… And they're still ready, and waiting (not so patiently as before).
With no console design, no finalised hardware specs, no price point and no specific release date (except the ambiguous statement of “Holiday 2013”), the Sony team took their years of PR and produced the longest presentation of filler ever seen. Two hours later and numerous developers pulled out of hats to perform on stage, here is everything we know.
The new console, of course, is called PlayStation 4 or PS4; it will have an x86 8 core processor, an ‘enhanced’ PC graphics chip, 8GB of GDDR5 memory and a hard drive. The new DualShock 4 is more curved than its PS3 predecessor, with an added touchpad, headphone jack, light bar (trackable by Sony's new stereo camera aka Kinect) and a Share button.
The Share button will play a major role, as the PlayStation Network/Cloud allows you to share screenshots and recordings of your games straight to Facebook (no news if other networks, such as Twitter, can be linked too) or stream your gaming session live via Ustream. There's a bigger focus on your friends list, with friends being able to comment and spectate on your game, even taking over to complete a difficult level. This will be backed up with companion social apps for various smartphone and tablet platforms, as well as full integration with Vita including a remote play feature, allowing games to be played on the Vita screen.
The Share button will play a major role, as the PlayStation Network/Cloud allows you to share screenshots and recordings of your games straight to Facebook (no news if other networks, such as Twitter, can be linked too) or stream your gaming session live via Ustream. There's a bigger focus on your friends list, with friends being able to comment and spectate on your game, even taking over to complete a difficult level. This will be backed up with companion social apps for various smartphone and tablet platforms, as well as full integration with Vita including a remote play feature, allowing games to be played on the Vita screen.
Auto saving games as you switch off is now built-in, with the console able to relaunch paused games when switched back on. Updates can now be downloaded while the system is switched off and games bought from the online store can be played as the system begins downloading (similar to Steam). The store will have demos for every game and games from the original PSone through to the PS3 will be appearing. It is NOT backward compatible with PS3 disc games or saves.
A number of games have been announced to launch, with Sucker Punch landing a new episode in their superpowers franchise, inFAMOUS: Second Son; Guerrilla Games with a new Killzone outing, Shadow Fall; Sony's inhouse Evolution Studios introducing a new social driving game, ten years in the making, Driveclub; Bungie's Destiny, which is their first game since their split from Microsoft and Halo; and with more due to be announced soon, including a Final Fantasy announcement from Square Enix scheduled for E3.
A number of games have been announced to launch, with Sucker Punch landing a new episode in their superpowers franchise, inFAMOUS: Second Son; Guerrilla Games with a new Killzone outing, Shadow Fall; Sony's inhouse Evolution Studios introducing a new social driving game, ten years in the making, Driveclub; Bungie's Destiny, which is their first game since their split from Microsoft and Halo; and with more due to be announced soon, including a Final Fantasy announcement from Square Enix scheduled for E3.
It's a giant list but we have yet to get the vital answers. What does it look like? How much is it? What are the full specs? What's the specific release date? And will it beat the to-be-announced successor to the Xbox 360? It seems that we will have to wait for E3 to find all of these out and you can be sure we at I'm With Geek will be covering this and more at E3 and beyond.