Sony Reveals More PS4 and Dual Shock 4 Details

Yesterday, Sony gave a presentation explaining a bit about the new PS4 hardware, the development environment (Windows 7 based IDE), and the changes to the Dual Shock controller. From the article: "The system is also set up to run graphics and computational code synchronously, without suspending one to run the other. Norden says that Sony has worked to carefully balance the two processors to provide maximum graphics power of 1.843 teraFLOPS at an 800Mhz clock speed while still leaving enough room for computational tasks. The GPU will also be able to run arbitrary code, allowing developers to run hundreds or thousands of parallelized tasks with full access to the system's 8GB of unified memory. ... The DualShock 4 controller that's standard on the PS4 eliminates one feature that was seldom used on the PS3 —the analog face buttons..." The trackpad will support two touch points, the rumble motors can be controlled more finely, and the analog sticks were tweaked for "reduced dead zone and better feeling tension that grips your thumbs."

Comments

Any Word On compatability?

[Wing_Zero]

So are they going to ditch the PS3 support with this one? i still have my PS2 sitting in my living room for that reason.

Re:Any Word On compatability?

[Somebody Is Using My]

The Playstation 4 will not be backwards compatible with Playstation 3 games.

Playstation 2 games will be supported via emulation, /if/ you buy and download them from the Playstation store (so no, you can't just pop in a PS2 disc and expect it to work; you need to buy the game again).

In other words, for full backwards compatibility you need all three devices.

Re:Any Word On compatability?

[ZombieBraintrust]

They are ditching PS3 support. Mainly so they can move to a PC architecture.

Re:Any Word On compatability?

[tepples]

Acquisition of GaiKai and skinny on the street says it will be offered down the line by some sort of cloudy streamy service.

Which means if your home Internet is satellite, microwave, capped DSL, capped cable, or capped fiber, good luck.

Re:Any Word On compatability?

[butalearner]

In other words, for full backwards compatibility you need all three devices.

My 60 GB first generation PS3 begs to differ! Just a month ago I was looking through my games and I realized I never played Growlanser 3 (which came in the set with 2, which I played through twice), so I've been going through that one. As a bonus, it takes some of the load off my aging furnace.

The missing article...

[boarder8925]

I think this is the article in question.

Re:Analog face buttons?

[Tmann72]

Yeah, you do. It's the four face buttons with the X, O, Triangle, and Square. They had analogue capability in that they could detect how soft or hard you pressed them. This was used more in the ps2 days, but has fallen out of use since it rarely made things better.

Re:Too bad

[noh8rz10]

I for one welcome my new time wasting overlord. Why the hell not, sounds like fun! I'm not going to hold my nose because of a 4 year old Linux thing, or a 15 year old cd root kit thing. What I care is, how awesome will bioshock infinite 2 or assassin's creed V look? The only thing missing fromm the summary is a ship date. Will it be out the door in time for Christmas?

Re:Too bad

[tepples]

I'm not going to hold my nose because of a 4 year old Linux thing

I disagree. If the management responsible for Sony's behavior in the George Hotz and Lik Sang cases has neither left nor repented, I don't see how I can forgive Sony.

What's the point of buying a Sony PC?

[tepples]

If PlayStation 4 is moving to a PC architecture, then what's the point of buying a PlayStation 4 over a home theater PC running a less-closed operating system such as Windows 8 or GNU/Linux?

Re:What's the point of buying a Sony PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

PCs don't get to run Sony exclusive titles. People like them, a lot. It's the same for the other consoles, it's about the games, not the transistor configurations. The new xbox will also return to x86 architecture. Going to moan about that too?

Re:What's the point of buying a Sony PC?

[gstoddart]

If PlayStation 4 is moving to a PC architecture, then what's the point of buying a PlayStation 4 over a home theater PC running a less-closed operating system such as Windows 8 or GNU/Linux?

So you can play the games for the Playstation?

The internals might be PC architecture, but Sony is going to make damned sure there's lots preventing you from running these games on a PC.

Sony is doing this to cut costs, not make something which is 'open' in any meaningful way. Because let's face it, Sony doesn't do that sort of thing.

Re:Anyone ever use

[Colonel Korn]

the analog face buttons? I gave up pretty quick on them after using them to play Mad Maestro on the PS2. Didn't even realize they were still in the PS3. I do wish Sony would stop adding pointless features to their game pads. It's not so much that the features bug me as I'd rather they spend time/money somewhere else. Plus it'd be nice if the gamepads weren't $60 bucks. On the plus side the PS4's gamepad looks cheap to produce.

I think the useless touchpad will drive up the price.

If you want Linux, get Ouya

[tepples]

Fortunately, for people who want a Linux box and a game console in one package, Ouya comes out this June. I have no need for Sony.

Nuh uh

[fyngyrz]

No hardware compatibility, no emulation == no buy.

And I agree with you: I *am* going to hold my nose because of that linux thing. That was uncalled for. "Here! Have this console with this feature! Got it? Ok, yeah, that feature? We're taking that out."

I just can't see giving Sony any more money; as they chose to make it so that only used, older units will play the titles in my game library, then so be it: Used, older units is what I will buy when the ones I have go nipples north. I've already dedicated more shelves (and system inputs) to game machines than most people bother to; no more.

There's a silver lining to this, too... the used game market for the previous and earlier generation machines is inexpensive and rich with titles. Couldn't find and play all the good ones if I played one a day for the rest of my life. There are a few titles that have basically infinite re-playability, too, because they're about interacting with other people. So.... pfbbbt.

Re:Nuh uh

[Hatta]

No hardware compatibility, no emulation == no buy.

Why not? Don't you already have a PS3 you can play your PS3 games on? It's a brand new console. Backwards compatibility didn't help the Atari 7800, and it didn't help the Sega Genesis much either. Why spend so much effort engineering in backwards compatibility when you can just play your old console?

When DVDs came out, I didn't bitch that they weren't backwards compatible with what I already had. I kept my VCR and watched my tapes on that when I wanted to, and watched DVDs when I wanted to do that. What's so hard about that?

Promising backwards compatibility and then removing it is a shitty thing to do to your customers. Being up front about the lack of a feature that's barely useful is doing things right for a change.

Re:Nuh uh

[spire3661]

DO you know how the PS3 got PS2 emulation? By slapping a full set of PS2 hardware inside the PS3. The Xbox back compat list is spotty at best. I have had a full back compat PS3 since launch, and a full library of PS2 titles. The PS2 games i played the most I ended up geting the HD remasters of. Its a total non-issue. What you should be stoked for is the fact that the next consoles are pretty PCs and that development across PC and consoles is going to be very smooth and easy.

Re:Nuh uh

[hairyfeet]

Besides lets be honest folks...its an HTPC. Both MSFT and Sony have gone with low power HTPC chips from AMD...so why not just build an HTPC and have control of the system?

Hell you can buy a nice AMD Hexacore for $300 that will curbstomp the chip in the Sony and MSFT consoles, just slap whatever GPU you prefer (If you want to save money the HD4850s are dirt cheap and play most games at 1080P and med/high settings, spend a little more you can get the HD7770 and double the memory and boost the performance by 50%) and whatever OS suits your fancy, I prefer Win 7 but on an HTPC Windows 8 actually works nice as those big ass tiles are easy to hit with a remote and since Valve has ported Steam Linux is always an option, and unlike the consoles its YOURS, want multiple OSes? RUN IT. Want to buy games from a dozen different vendors? DO IT. Nobody has control over the hardware but YOU.

I could understand the consoles in the past because it was hard to hook a PC to a TV for the average Joes and the consoles used exotic chips that gave them advantages in some areas...but its an AMD Jaguar folks, a bog standard X86 netbook chip, all they did was bolt 2 jaguar quads together and there ya go. I built a system just like the one linked for my oldest and it just blows through games like they were nothing WHILE playing his tunes AND having his chat running AND his browser loaded in the background, it never bogs down. And hooking a PC to a TV is as simple as an HDMI cable now, my mom could do it, it will detect the TV and do all the setup and Bob's your uncle. And if you want the little case? They make VCR looking cases you can use if that is what melts your butter but I've built several HTPCs and when folks see how nice the new cases look they usually just skip the HTPC case.

So I don't get it this time, like Jim Sterling said about the current consoles they are just crappy PCs with all the hassles like long updates and online passes but none of the upsides like cheaper prices and better MP...so why? Its not like you can't plug a wireless controller into a PC, Valve has big picture mode now which makes driving with a wireless thumbstick or remote easy peasy, the games are cheaper, MP lasts longer, hell you can still fire up Counterstrike Classic and be blasting away with dozens of folks inside of 4 minutes, and the best reason it leaves YOU in control of your system, so why? Why get worse prices and all the BS from Sony and MSFT along with gimped hardware? The sad part is when MSFT and Sony move to the Xbox 5 and PS5 they'll abandon the systems but thanks to DMCA they'll make sure nobody can just put out a simple unlock so all that bog standard X86 hardware will be dumpster bait...why put up with that?

Re:Nuh uh

[feandil]

like most people you underestimate the advantage of using unified memory. there's no data transfer on the bus when you want to send data calculated from the cpu onto the gpu, the graphics perf are going to be vastly superior to an "equivalent" PC when we devs tune our engine to make the most of it.

Re:Nuh uh

[hairyfeet]

Yeah yeah, wasn't that the same tune you guys sang for the last THREE console revs? And it took PCs maybe a year before games looked better on PC?

And who gives a rat's ass about unified memory when the PC has 8GB and the GPU another GB of its own? Unless they are gonna replace hard drives with SSDs and use exotic memory like SRAM (which from the specs again its just an HTPC with some buzzword bingo covering the fact its just an HTPC) you are STILL limited by how fast the hard drive or Blu Ray can spin, and with even low end machines coming with 8GB of DDR 3 nowadays frankly memory ain't shit, if anything in a year the PCs will be having to drag down their graphics because of the consoles.

Again look up the specs on Bobcat which is all Jaguar is, its just not a powerful chip, you can dance around and throw bullshit all day long but that ain't gonna make a Pinto into a Porsche Hoss. The Bobcat/Jaguar was made to compete with ATOM, Not even the Celeron, the fricking Atom, and all the buzzwords in the world ain't gonna change that fact.

Then why PS exclusives over PC exclusives?

[tepples]

PCs don't get to run Sony exclusive titles. People like them, a lot.

Nor do PlayStations run PC-exclusive titles. People like them, a lot. There are a lot of games that Valve greenlighted that Sony probably wouldn't for whatever reason.

DNAS error -103

[tepples]

There are a few titles that have basically infinite re-playability, too, because they're about interacting with other people.

If by "interacting with other people" you mean "online play", Sony is known for closing these titles' matchmaking servers with DNAS error -103 ("This software title is not in service") to make you buy the sequel. If by "interacting with other people" you mean something else, please elaborate.

Re:DNAS error -103

[cayenne8]

If by "interacting with other people" you mean "online play", Sony is known for closing these titles' matchmaking servers with DNAS error -103 ("This software title is not in service") to make you buy the sequel. If by "interacting with other people" you mean something else, please elaborate.

Yeah, I'm a bit concerned on this front, but for a different reason.

I bought my PS3 a few years back because then it was a reasonable price for:

1. 3D Bluray player

2. It streamed Netflix 3. Now, it also streams Amazon Prime

4. Oh...apparently it plays games too.

I use it a great deal for watching HD YouTube these days, and streaming NF and AP.

I've bought like 3 games, I tried Red Dead Redemption and love the game, but can never get the hang of it.

I used to could play game quite well as a kid, but I can't seem to get the real memory and muscle memory to get down all the freakin' controls on the dual shock. Two joy sticks (that also are press-able buttons) and the other plethora of buttons, and then on top...this new (to me) 3rd person view.

I do ok till a gunfight hits, and next thing I know, I'm staring at the sky or the ground and blood stains are filling the screen.

I guess I need to find 2-3 weekends in a row, with nothing else to do but sit down and learn the damned controller.

The games look cool, I would thing that the Batman Arkham Asylum would be fun, but shit, I don't think I stand a chance to play that one till I can somehow develop the muscle memory for the controllers.

Anyway, I digress, but I bought the PS3 mostly as a nice BR player and streaming machine.

I hope those functionalities aren't dropped anytime soon after the PS4 comes out.

Re:DNAS error -103

[apoc06]

Part of the reason PSN is free is because the servers are run by the publishers, not Sony. I believe that Sony may host a game server if the developer or publisher pays for it, but the Sony PSN servers mainly handle infrastructure, friends lists, updates, etc.

Sony doesn't dictate when a game's servers should go dark. If a game is no longer supported, blame the publisher.

GPU already years out of date

[InsaneLampshade]

1.8 teraflops, 800MHz clock speed... so they're aiming for a GPU with roughly the same power of something nVidia released in 2010?

Not to mention only 8GB RAM shared between GPU & CPU, I'm sure that'll last us for years to come!

Re:GPU already years out of date

[Voyager529]

1.8 teraflops, 800MHz clock speed... so they're aiming for a GPU with roughly the same power of something nVidia released in 2010?

Not to mention only 8GB RAM shared between GPU & CPU, I'm sure that'll last us for years to come!

Two pieces of fairness here...

1.) the PS3 had 256MBytes of RAM on its release.
2.) like every other console, it can get away with having lower specs than a general purpose PC - it doesn't have to run an operating system in the same sense that a desktop does; in broad terms it's closer to ESXi and its requirements than Win7/OSX/Ubuntu in its, so far more of that RAM can go to the game itself.

Bonus: Even if we postulate that the OS takes a gig of RAM itself, 7GB is roughly 1/3 of a single layer Blu-Ray disc. I know that HD textures can eat up graphics RAM pretty quickly, but is it really limiting to have 1/3 of a game in RAM at a time? Let's face it, console game creation has always involved working within some incredibly tight limits...even Crysis 3 doesn't require that amount of RAM to play. If 7GB of RAM and streaming the rest from an internal hard disk is a constraint, then I'd be forced to assume that the people writing games cut their teeth on ActiveX controls...

Re:GPU already years out of date

[InsaneLampshade]

Skyrim can easily reach 4GB RAM on PC with the better textures they released for the PC version. That came out in what 2011? I'm sure over the course of the next few years we'll be at a point where higher quality textures in games push RAM usage well beyond 8GB.

Re:PC/PS4 multiplatform releases

[Dcnjoe60]

The internals might be PC architecture, but Sony is going to make damned sure there's lots preventing you from running these games on a PC.

Please elaborate on these "lots". How is Sony going to prevent licensed developers from taking their own games, which are already ported to very PC-like hardware, and making PC ports available through Steam on the PC? And what is Sony going to do to attract PS4 ports of games originally developed for the PC?

Both Macs and Windows use PC architecture computers, and yet, I cannot run most Mac software on my Windows PC and vice versa. I can run Linux on both, but I can't run software designed for either on Linux. Software compatability is a lot more involved than the underlying hardware.

Re:does it run Linux

[Narishma]

No, it runs BSD instead.

Used

[tepples]

I don't have a PS3.

Then why do you have PS3 games that you would use with backward compatibility? Or would you be buying used games?

Re:Nuh uh (Why not?)

[Filter]

Why not? Because I don't have to, because a new ps4 is not a necessity. Since there is no backwards compatibility I have no compelling reason to choose this Sony product over any other game console. It will be easy for me to follow my conscience and choose to purchase from a company with higher standards of conduct. I don't trust Sony, trust is earned, they have proved themselves untrustworthy. Sometimes it's hard to make a consumer decision but this couldn't be simpler.

No analog buttons but PS2 game support?

[HalAtWork]

The DualShock 4 controller that's standard on the PS4 eliminates one feature that was seldom used on the PS3 —the analog face buttons..."

So how will PS2 games like Metal Gear Solid 2 be playable? Canceling a shot by easing off the fire button is crucial.

And it didn't even make a difference for security

[Myria]

"Here! Have this console with this feature! Got it? Ok, yeah, that feature? We're taking that out."

Sony claimed that removing Linux from the older systems was for security, but the PS3 ended up getting hacked to hell anyway. Sony really should have lost that lawsuit over removing a feature from the old models.

With consoles, the best versions are generally the first or second versions, because over time, the company releases systems with fewer and fewer features.

Android is Linux, but not GNU/Linux

[tepples]

Ouya is Android

Agreed.

not Linux.

Android is not GNU/Linux, but it does use the Linux kernel, and some people have reported success running a userspace based on GNU in a chroot alongside Android.

Unified memory in PCs

[tepples]

PCs with Intel IGPs have unified memory. What unified memory means is that the CPU and GPU are fighting over access to the memory bus.