Sony Announces the PS4

As many expected, Sony has officially announced the PS4 at the Sony PlayStation Meeting today. The new PlayStation will have an X86 processor, "state of the art" GPU, 8 GB of high-speed unified memory, and a hard drive for local storage. The PS4 will allow gamers to share their gameplay stream and even remotely take control of friend's games. Along with the PS4, Sony has unveiled a new DualShock 4 controller which features a built-in touchpad at the center of the controller, and a built-in microphone jack.

Comments

"Uses an X86 Processor"

[sidthegeek]

So what exactly is gonna differentiate this from a mid-level to high-end gaming rig? And does it run Linux (and will Linux not be snatched away as if it's their right to tell us what we can use our own hardware for)?

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[Kenshin]

A dedicated gaming console doesn't have the desktop OS overhead to deal with. You can squeeze more out of less in this case. Especially with devs working to a fixed target.

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[DigiShaman]

Doesn't work like that. Frequency, instruction set efficiency, and parallel execution are different aspects of a modern processor. You can't just lump them all togeather and brand it an i5ish CPU. Which BTW is a false comparison anyways as an i5 has four real cores.

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[Entropius]

Is there really that much overhead?

I just ssh'd into my linux machine at work (which has a Gnome UI going) and ran top, and it says that 99.7% of the CPU is idle, with 0.25% used by top.

I'm on a Win 7 box right now (quad-core 2GHz Sandy Bridge laptop), with a gazillion Firefox etc. tabs open. The CPU may well not be running at its highest clock speed, but it reports about 10% CPU usage -- from "FlashPlayerPlugin.exe", presumably because I'm streaming 1080p video with no GPU assist on the decode. Firefox itself, along with "System", are using 1% CPU.

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[CajunArson]

Those are *not* Bulldozer cores! They are more similar to the lower-end Jaguar cores that are going into AMD's tablet & netbook products. They are still a major step up from the actual cores in the Cell (those SPE things are not really "cores"), but even a Bulldozer core will be more powerful than these things on a clock for clock basis.

The good news is the GPU is pretty nice for this type of system and the power consumption should be quite good, so heat won't be an issue. Definitely a huge step up from PS3 hardware, and "console ports" won't suck so bad since this thing is basically a real PC.

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[Tagged_84]

Yes just like how we got an xbox emulator shortly after it's release?

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[non0score]

On the consoles, the OS is basically like a "library" rather than a "layer" the game sits on top. That and the OS doesn't constantly swap out your threads and trash registers/L1/L2 in order to run itself. This isn't really a secret.

Re:"Uses an X86 Processor"

[RCL]

It might force one or two games companies to improve other parts of the games instead like gameplay.

That is more a problem with gamers, not games. As we get older, less things fascinate us. Take any video game of the XX century and compare with a modern game side by side - you'll see how crude and rude that was, yet people tend to rememeber old games fondly for gameplay. But if you start looking for actually good gameplay ideas in games of the past, you'll find that a) most of them have been reimplemented since then, and improved upon b) there was less variety in gameplay back then than it is today. It is astonishing that games fascinated more (comparatively) people in 1980s and 1990s than they are today - probably related to the fact that computers were still new.

That's big news...

[Nefarious Wheel]

...and I wouldn't buy a Sony product if they paid me to take it. I have not forgotten what they do to their customers in the name of IP. Groklaw it.

That's nothing

[greg1104]

The PS3 already allowed non-friends to take control of my bank account.

Re:Sony on Slashdot

[Ost99]

LOL. Hatred is reserved for things that still matter. Like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook maybe even Google. Sony is quite simply irrelevant.

Relevant?
One a dead rock star, a stagnant has-been, a nobody and an ad salesman?

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry, had to say it)

No, you didn't but you said it anyway.
You just wanted to be near the top.
Aren't you clever.

Re:It's not all about power....differentiators are

[jma05]

Why do people, especially here, keep saying that you save money with a console? It may have other benefits (like not having to install game DRM on a general use machine, for family use, where the entertainment system should be isolated etc), but saving money is not one of them. You buy an EXTRA machine OVER your desktop. A gaming desktop is cheaper than a non-gaming desktop PLUS a console. And then there is console tax over games and multi-player, which when accounted, practically compensates the gaming component cost.

Having 2 devices has some advantages, but that's a different matter. PC GPUs can have 7yr life cycles too... if you are happy with 7 yr old settings... which is for most part (console graphics appear to improve over time, partly because the quality of early titles, aside from token exclusives, is poor. The difference is not so great that later titles will get you 1080p instead of 720p) is what you get with consoles anyway. Most recent games, will play on a 8800 (XBOX 360 had a 8800 while the PS3 had a 7800 to compensate the Cell's GPU failings) at 720p and medium to low settings. You only needed a PC refresh in between if you fancied 1080p or more, better physics, textures and tessellation since, that current consoles cannot deliver anyway. In short, PCs *appear* to have shorter life-cycles because *you* want more stuff... because upgrade is an *option*.

Personally, I prefer getting a mid-range GPU, a year after the consoles are released. My GTX 260, inexpensively bought on a sale, has at least another 2 years in it. PC gaming is NOT expensive.

Re:How long until the PS4 is irrelevant?

[definate]

As my console friends remind me. There's a much greater simplicity and ease of use of the consoles versus the PCs in their eyes.

They will still buy consoles, for the same reason that your parents don't run virtualized environments to emulate other operating systems, and the same reason that most people I've met haven't cracked their Wii... it's all too complicated and frustrating for them. This doesn't preclude other people setting it up for them, but they often don't feel comfortable with it.