PlayStation 4 announced, coming this 'holiday'

At its media event tonight, Sony officially announced the PlayStation 4.

February 20, 2013 3:13 PM

At its media event tonight, Sony officially announced the PlayStation 4. Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, introduced Mark Cerny as the lead system architect. Cerny called it a "supercharged" PC, with an X86 CPU and 8GB of GDDR-5 memory, 8 CPU cores, 2 Tflops of processing. He called it "a platform for game creators by game creators," and showed off the new DualShock 4. It boasts improved latency and rumbling, along with a stereo camera and light bar to keep track of the controller.

The front of the DualShock 4

Cerny then detailed the ease-of-use for the consumer. The PlayStation 4 includes a suspend/resume button like the Vita, letting you shut down and pick up a game quickly. Digital titles will be playable as they're being downloaded, since you can start playing and have the rest download in the background. It also, as rumored, will always be recording video and allows you to share it via a dedicated "Share" button. This also means you'll be able to view and comment on streams of your friends. The friends network will use "real world friends," letting you import friends from existing social networks in addition to your PSN ID friends. Sony is also planning companion apps on tablets and Vita, similar to the Wii U's Miiverse. The console is aiming to have predictive game downloads based on your preferences and history, so you'll find content pre-loaded on your system. Cerny says the goal is to reduce download time to zero by predicting what you'll want to play.

The camera for the PS4

Gaikai CEO Dave Perry finally shed light on how Sony will use the acquisition. He said that when browsing any game, you can press X to instantly try it out. Perry said he supports the idea: "try it for free, share it if you like it, and pay only if you love it." The Vita will also support Remote Play to "instantly" switch screens via Gaikai technology. The "longterm goal" is to make all PS4 games playable on Vita, implying that some may not be at first. PlayStation 3 games won't be natively playable on the PS4, as rumored, but Gaikai seems to be Sony's solution. "We could one day put PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS Mobile games on any device, including PS4." Their philosophy is said to be "everything everywhere." The title PlayStation Cloud was only teased, with more details promised later. Near the end of the presentation, the console was confirmed for a holiday 2013 release.

PlayStation 4 third parties

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February 20, 2013 12:00 AM

Steve Watts posted a new article, PlayStation 4 announced.

At its media event tonight, Sony officially announced the PlayStation 4. Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, introduced Mark...
- Sideways Bob
  
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  February 20, 2013 3:35 PM
  
  I'm cautiously optimistic.
- Wiz74
  
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  February 20, 2013 3:39 PM
  
  I am waiting to see some video showing off something running on it
- k1ld0r
  
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  February 20, 2013 3:51 PM
  
  Cerny called it a "supercharged" PC, with an X86 CPU and 8GB of GDDR-5 memory, 8 CPU cores, 2 Tflops of processing.
  
  My PC is still better. :(
  - TheEmissary
    
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    February 20, 2013 4:07 PM
    
    Given that this generation of consoles is using off-the-shelf pc hardware many the ports will be better optimized all around.
  - deadhorse
    
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    February 20, 2013 4:25 PM
    
    Um, 12 cores in your cpu then?
    - TheEmissary
      
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      February 20, 2013 4:27 PM
      
      The rumor has it that "supercharged" PC is a AMD 8 core clocked at 1.6ghz. He isn't wrong in saying there are better gaming CPUs out now.
    - lumphrey
      
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      February 20, 2013 5:08 PM
      
      More cores =/= better
  - zakazi
    
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    February 20, 2013 5:50 PM
    
    I'm guessing your PC doesn't have shared GDDR-5. Which as I understand it has twice the transfer rate of the highest normal RAM we'd use in a system. And both the CPU and the GPU are sharing it.
    
    This makes it easy to switch between the CPU and GPU for the same data without having to shove it through some bus and shuffle data around. That can allow developers to do some very nice things that would be tougher to do on a PC (and in the past I remember one of the consoles had the issue of all this video RAM with a nice fast processor, but actually getting data over to it was a huge pain in the ass).
    
    I believe that's what they mean by "super charged". Very, very similar to a PC, but has some key changes to make it much nicer to work with from a development point of view.
    - xsikal
      
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      February 20, 2013 10:01 PM
      
      The few developers I follow were all very jazzed about the unified memory, so I'm thinking that is the strongest selling point for them.
      - TheEmissary
        
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        February 20, 2013 10:51 PM
        
        More memory generally means a couple things such as being able to do more memory demanding post processing effects or anti-aliasing, and keep more things in memory to avoid unnecessary streaming. So yes it is a big deal to have that amount of ram. Could improve draw distances as well because you have more objects and textures of a scene in memory.
  - thebigbeefsandwich
    
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    February 20, 2013 6:04 PM
    
    same old "blast processing" bit
  - [deleted] 254413471
    
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    February 21, 2013 2:24 AM
    
    [deleted]
- deadhorse
  
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  February 20, 2013 4:23 PM
  
  Thank god they finally got smart and made the control sticks concave instead of the idiotically designed convex sticks on every previous DS. I can't tell about the triggers. They definitely aren't as nicely curved to hold your fingers like the 360 controller, but they don't appear to curve down like the abysmal DS3. Hopefully they are somewhat concave as well, otherwise someone will just have to release more plastic stick-on pieces to make it really usable.
- Milleh
  
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  February 20, 2013 5:07 PM
  
  sooooo...1080p?
  - code-e255
    
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    February 21, 2013 10:06 PM
    
    This is also what I want to know. Don't give a fuck about Vita and motion sensor crap.
- spammehardo
  
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  February 20, 2013 5:19 PM
  
  Here is a physics simulation running off the gpu because the CPU sucks.
  - megablaz0r
    
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    February 20, 2013 5:23 PM
    
    Wow... I don't know whether to laugh or insult you. Go learn about how physics are handled in present-day gaming rigs and you'll see exactly how stupid your comment is.
    - TheEmissary
      
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      February 20, 2013 5:29 PM
      
      Most physics engines now are cpu bound but there are some like Physx that use compute shaders to do it. Not to mention you can run complete programs on a GPU via CUDA/DirectCompute/OpenCL. We have no clue if they did any of that but it is certainly possible.
    - spammehardo
      
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      February 20, 2013 5:38 PM
      
      Jokes on you. My 6950 never does any physics processing in games.
      - pancake humper
        
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        February 20, 2013 5:43 PM
        
        because it's an AMD.
        
        spammehardo
        
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        February 20, 2013 5:52 PM
        
        Even if you have nvid it doesn't unless the game supports physx.
        
        FesterBlatz
        
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        February 20, 2013 5:58 PM
        
        lol... that hole must be getting pretty damn deep by now.
        
        Learn to read and stop being so defensive.
- Haxim
  
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  February 20, 2013 5:42 PM
  
  PlayStation 4 announced, coming this 'holiday'
  by Steve Watts, Feb 20, 2013 3:13pm PST
  
  Posted by Shacknews, Feb 20, 2013 12:00am PST
  
  ???
  - zakazi
    
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    February 20, 2013 5:52 PM
    
    hahaha, what the.
    - abrasion
      
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      February 20, 2013 5:53 PM
      
      Pre-booked the article slot on the site?
      - Haxim
        
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        February 20, 2013 6:16 PM
        
        But since you can't edit posts, it's like the write up was done ahead of time....
- FesterBlatz
  
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  February 20, 2013 5:58 PM
  
  Twitter user @mthspatriot11 tweeted: "Sony just revealed the worlds first invisible console.
  
  lmao.
  - Derringer
    
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    February 20, 2013 6:58 PM
    
    I don't get why not seeing the console is such a big deal. People need to find something to hate on since the presentation had some pretty sweet info I suppose.
    - kiddygrinder
      
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      February 20, 2013 10:01 PM
      
      the shape affects... the wind resistance i guess?
      - Derringer
        
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        February 20, 2013 10:17 PM
        
        Yeah, I mean, we know it will either be:
        
        Matte black and collect dust too easy
        
        or
        
        Shiny black and collect fingerprints easily
        
        Either way there will be bitching.
        
        FesterBlatz
        
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        February 21, 2013 1:55 AM
        
        LOL.
        
        I hope it's purple.
        
        Man those hater comments are getting old. Think about it for one second at least.
        
        Total Exodus
        
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        February 22, 2013 12:13 AM
        
        I hope they at least give people more color options this time around. There were some nice limited edition PS3's out there.
- JeanLucAwesome
  
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  February 20, 2013 6:05 PM
  
  LOVE that new controller.
  
  New infamous, impressive specs shown, partnership with Blizzard, optional remote play with Vita.
  
  I like that right off the bat, it's aimed at the gamers and not being a living room box. My purchase is confirmed.
- Thresher
  
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  February 20, 2013 6:13 PM
  
  So they did not show the kit itself? Just the controller?
  - Alexrose
    
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    February 20, 2013 7:30 PM
    
    Who do they think they are, Nintendo?
- MH Knights
  
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  February 20, 2013 6:25 PM
  
  So how much will this cost?
  - JeanLucAwesome
    
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    February 20, 2013 6:45 PM
    
    Won't know till E3 most likely.
- wytefang
  
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  February 20, 2013 6:38 PM
  
  Sounds sort of interesting, I suppose.
- Endymion_
  
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  February 21, 2013 8:06 AM
  
  So, everybody is ready to see PS3 sales drop like a rock?
  - radula
    
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    February 21, 2013 8:41 AM
    
    if the PS4 is cheaper than a PS3, yeah!
- phreakshow
  
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  February 21, 2013 8:53 AM
  
  Goodbye, internet bandwidth!
- evilbabygenius
  
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  February 21, 2013 2:34 PM
  
  Why did they spend so much time talking about sharing videos, and social networking? I dont want any of that BS in my consoles. I dont want to Tweet or Share stuff on FB, I dont want to share some crappy video of me playing, or watch others play. I want to play games and stream movies. Thats it...and I think they spent too much time pushing something which isnt going to even be considered a main feature.