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

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: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?

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.