Slashdot Mirror
A Playstation 4 Teardown
Dave Knott writes "Just over one week ahead of the launch of the Playstation 4, Wired has posted an article with a full teardown of Sony's new device. In an accompanying video Sony engineering director Yasuhiro Ootori dismantles the PS4 piece by piece, describing each component and showing just what is contained inside the sleek black box."
That's super of them, to give the modders a head start like that!
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Sure, people who don't care any like the games...
But surely Sony have left a bad taste in many peoples mouths, with removing promised features, poor security after getting hacked several times, DRM rootkits, propriety crap instead of standards...
It feels weird to say it, but XBOX is clearly the better platform here.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
what my next console is going to be. Guess I will wait and see what happens in the ensuing months.
what a lousy teardown. Ifixit does 'em better.
A spinning disc, in 2013? Who's the target market, people with toddlers that want to watch Fern Gully 7,433,245 times?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
People who don't want to wait several hours to download an 8+ GB game?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The PS4 controller, AKA the dualshock4, is a pretty impressive little device. Trackpad, motion, control, speaker, headset, analog sticks, bunch of buttons.
And it will connect to any device via bluetooth or USB because it shows up as a Generic HID device on both! You can pair it with your PC, phone or tablet via bluetooth or connect it to anything that supports USB.
Right now just the basic stuff is supported. Both analog sticks and all buttons (Including the tackpad click). The big triggers register a button press, and register analog on a seperate input too. Hell, even the tilt/motion control shows up as an analog input.
I'm fairly certain, like with the wiimote, an improved driver will be developed to access the special functions like the track pad and audio interfaces.
I don't plan on getting the PS4 but I already have a dualshock 4 (You can buy them now at gamestop) and I'm toying with it on lots of things. Already use it as a controller on my tablet for playing emulators and it works better than anything else I've tried by far.
A high-quality and detailed teardown of their own product? I think that's freaking awesome. And smart too - they know the success of the PS4 will depend on the early adopter, hard-core gamer, the type of person who has likely put together a home-grown PC gaming system and who would get excited about exactly this type of video. Well done Sony.
Where is the 'we will screw you later on' module?
Every sony product has one..
This was very interesting to watch, also to see him describe some of the hardware (such as CPU and GPU being single chip, with GDDR5 on the motherboard). I'm usually a fan of the Xbox, but I've never seen Microsoft give one shred of detail about how to take apart any product of theirs.. I've never seen Sony either, but this is a welcome change.
do you really want to download 25-50GB games?
even if you have a fast and cap free ISP you still need some where to store them and big SDD's cost a lot.
That would take around 1,074 years to watch. Your toddler will be long dead before then. Your Playstation 4 will still be playing. /propaganda
can it run linux?
to justify the cost, other than sony's corporate greed. i bet these are way cheaper to manufacture than previous generations, and this is no loss leader funded by game sales.
PS4 will have FF XIV, nothing interesting except Halo reruns for Xbox and no Metroid announced for Wii U.
PS4 wins.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I see peak sustained downloads of about 800KB/sec on my cable. Sure, it sucks, but we're well away from the central drop.
So, that's 10,000 seconds, or about 2 hours and 45 minutes, to download 8,000 MB.
Of course, that's peak. If anyone else in the house is using Netflix, or if I'm downloading anything else, it'll be slower. And 8GB is about the average of games on Blu-Ray today, for the PS3. For the PS4, they're liable to be substantially larger. Especially since the XBone will also be using Blu-Ray to distribute games, finally, so multiplatform games can be larger than 8GB.
So... yeah.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
A high-quality and detailed teardown of their own product? I think that's freaking awesome. And smart too - they know the success of the PS4 will depend on the early adopter, hard-core gamer, the type of person who has likely put together a home-grown PC gaming system and who would get excited about exactly this type of video. Well done Sony.
A detailed teardown was inevitable from someone - probably Ars Technica, for example. And that teardown comes with a review of Sony's architecture and decisions, and the review may not necessarily be entirely favorable. However, this way, the first teardown is accompanied by glowing descriptions of the hardware. Anything later is an also-ran, by definition, and will draw less eyeballs than it would have if it was first. The widest seen review now will be their own. More companies should do this.
After owning 3 360s, I switched to PS3 and am never looking back after I get a PS4. Microsoft screwed themselves out of this good customer.
I still cannot believe that in order to run streaming apps like Netflix or Hulu I have to purchase xbox live just to get the ethernet adapter to work. 50 bucks a year to turn on the ethernet adapter seems a little pricey.
He makes a comment about how the stickers are there on the back screws to discourage people opening it up and then he goes on to say you can replace the HD with any standard drive.
Seems they thought of what would happen if people tried to sell their PS4 on the used market. It would be easy/easier for the buyer to tell if the unit had been opened up while still allowing for people to upgrade their systems.
It's not like they dropped some security torx screws in this or other odd screws like others do (Apple).
This is the first time they have released a console that uses the same optical format as its predecessor - yet it can't play the software written for said predecsessor. They have made their old stuff obsolete and are demanding people pay more money to get that much more. I'd be surprised if people are willing to part with $400 for this new generation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yeah, because your old PS2 and 3 suddenly stop working with the 4 comes out.
And used PS3s simply disappear off the face of the earth!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
3 folks in my office already have them preordered. My boss took a day off to collect his and play it.
I am debating this or a steambox.
$400 is not exactly a fortune.
SLLING You can
You're expected to already have a live account for downloading games and multi-player, so that's not an inconvenience for most people that actually use it as a game console. You should be using something like a Roku if you just wanted to stream Netflix or Hulu.
I can do netflix or hulu from more than half of what is connected in the living room. To me, PS+ is the same crap as Xbox Live and I'm tempted to not buy either console because of it.
I use the Ethernet adapter without paying MS a dime more than the one off cost of the xbox360 itself - I just use local dlna servers...
Notice how the PS4 has a CPU, but no GPU.
That's because it uses INTEGRATED GRAPHICS.
This is the first time they have released a console that uses the same optical format as its predecessor
Yeah, and the last time, they had to put a PS2 chip on the mainboard just to do it--adding to the cost and footprint of the PS3 to do it (part of the reason it was $600 at launch). This time they're going for something a little more affordable, and so they weren't about to slap on an entire PS3 chipset on there just so a handful of nitpickers could play their old PS3 games without needing another HDMI port.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Cool video. Awesome they did this. Like the editing and camera work. Shame they had such bland lighting on such a bland background. Turn on a light or something!
wow, that thing is small. Amazing how small consoles have become in the past few years. It is half the size of my Plastation 2 fat version.
This is the first time they have released a console that uses the same optical format as its predecessor - yet it can't play the software written for said predecsessor.
Because it's the optical drive, not the core architecture of the CPU that matters here. Why not bring up the fact that they also use the same power cord?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Xbox is the ONLY device that does this. Its absurd and you are making excuses for it.
Good-bye
The 500GB HD can be replaced by any commercial drive of larger capacity according to the engineer in the video!
still cannot believe that in order to run streaming apps like Netflix or Hulu I have to purchase xbox live just to get the ethernet adapter to work.
That does seem hard to believe. Are you sure you'll need Xbox live gold, not the free version, for this? I need an Xbox live account to play a few of my PC games, and I definitely never paid for it!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I like that Sony provided the teardown. It shows a certain amount of openess and I get the sense that the engineers that designed it want us to see it in all its glory.
But then I see other things pop up, like having to download an update and register the device before I can play Blu-ray discs, that it won't play MP3s or CDs, that it won't stream video content from my computer. All of this reeks of a lame attempt to force PS4 owners into subscribing to Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited by placing artificial limits on the hardware.
What I love about my PS3 (and I bought mine the day it was released and haven't had a single problem with it) is that I could use it for more than just games; it became my HTPC.
It seems like the PS4 won't be able to fill the shoes of its predecessor. And that's a shame. And the reason why I won't be buying a PS4 at launch and probably won't touch it until sony "patches" the firmware to fix these "bugs".
You're being goofy. It's completely understandable that people are annoyed that they can't just put their PS4 where their PS3 had been due to the lack of backward compatibility. Sony was one of the companies that trained their customers to expect it, and could have delivered it if not for the huge misstep of using the Cell Processor in the PS3 rather than a PC-like system.
Even with the current gen XBox, you need XBox Live Gold -- the paid version -- to use Netflix, Hulu, and similar services. It is pretty fucking ridiculous even by Microsoft standards.
You missed the point, it is not a case of "My platform isn't quite as shitty as yours." this time around.
That said we have reached a state of meta-fanboi-ism, the new argument is, "The platform I don't have and have no real clue about isn't quite as shitty as the platform you don't have and have no real clue about." And for the record, yes this is yet another internet derived regresion of the human species.
You could always buy a second PC and put it next to your TV. With SteamOS PCs from multiple manufacturers set to ship early next year, and with a fairly wide selection of games for SteamOS at launch, the standard PC is starting to look more and more like a contender for the fourth console.
Note: I'm a former master race member who went to consoles, but not for the specs. I wanted the social interaction of multiplayer gaming on the same screen & couch
PC has supported same-screen multiplayer since 1999, when Windows added support for multiple USB game controllers. More conservatively, PC has supported it since 2006, when couch-sized PC monitors (read: HDTVs) became affordable and the market began to standardize on the wired Xbox 360 controller. Try some of these games.
I have 2 PS3s in my house, we have a huge libary of games for the PS3. I was a buyer day 1 with a 60GB unit that was backwards PS2 hardware compatible.
I would have bought a pair of PS4s on launch day if they had PS3 hardware inside of them, even if they cost $599 each.
Sony, pay attention... Some of us have money to spend, we don't mind... but what we do mind is having a bunch of boxes in front of our TVs. I will have a single console in front of my TV, not 2, not 3, just 1... I won't replace the PS3 with a PS4 because all our software will stop working.
Release a PS4 with PS3 hardware inside, even at a price premium, and I'm a customer. Not before.
But what I don't want is a bunch of consoles in front of my TVs, I like a clean look.
Why Sony isn't offering a $599 version with a built in PS3 is beyond me, I'd buy 2 of them.
You're expected to already have a live account for downloading games
On Xbox 360, buying games used a no-charge Xbox Live Silver account, not a paid Gold account.
and multi-player
True, provided that by multiplayer you specifically mean online multiplayer. But which console requires a recurring fee just to recognize more than one connected controller for two to four players on one console?
At Walmart, one can buy both food and a video game. At the strip mall, one can buy both clothes and a video game.
Where do you live that it takes several hours to get to a store?
Fort Wayne, Indiana, whose Citilink buses have regularly scheduled 36- or 60-hour outages. They stop running at around 6 PM on Saturday and don't start again until 6 AM on Monday, or 6 AM on Tuesday if Sunday or Monday is a major holiday.
I feel like he's explaining computers to the elderly; "here's the fan"..."this is called the Cee-Pee-Yoo"...."oh and this is a hard drive". Mind numbing. Then he mentions, "it wouldn't be very convenient if there was a separate power supply, so we incorporated it into the console"; wait, what? You mean like you've done since the very first PS??? Wow, that's so ground-breaking and awesome!!!
Where's the information about how GDDR5 is implemented? How different is the dedicated graphics from that of the PS3? What about an explanation of how the CPU and GPU are integrated? Nothing. It would have been nice if he explained how someone will "know that the case has been opened" too..is there some kind of breaking of the seal which is irreversible?
I would have bought a pair of PS4s on launch day if they had PS3 hardware inside of them, even if they cost $599 each.
Sony, pay attention... Some of us have money to spend, we don't mind...
The problem is, you and I are a niche... the masses saw that $599 PS3 and said "Why does it cost so much, it's just a game console." rather than "What? The thing plays Blu-ray and DVD movies AND PS2 and PSone games, AND audio CD's and SACD's, AND has a built in web browser AND I can view my digital camera pictures on it AND download video?"
Look at all the complaints about that "high PS3 launch price" we see here on Slashdot all the time.
That being said, $599 in 2006 isn't the same as $599 in 2013... and by offering a $399 option, the $599 option wouldn't be so bad.
I owned a PS1, I bought the PS2 because it played all my PS1 games. By the time I bought a PS3, I had moved on from PS1 games but still had a ton of PS2 games. Today? No PS2 games left, so I could live without PS1/2, but I do require PS3 support to upgrade.
This is the first time in a very, very long time that I haven't bought the newest console on launch day, going way back to the SNES.
I didn't get my PS3 till 2008, that $599 price was a bit much...I paid $459 in 2008 for the CECHE MGS4 model. I had no actual interest in MGS4, I just wanted to get a backwards compatible model before they stopped selling them...getting two bundled DS3's was a good deal though. I have actually played PSone disc games on my PS3 and I transferred my PSone memory cards over. And unlike the vast majority of people complaining about OtherOS removal...I did have YDL on mine.
That said, there is a bright spot..."some" PS3 games will be available in download form for the PS4...and if you've paid for the PS3 version, you get the PS4 version as part of that. Just like how it works with PSone downloads for PSP/Vita/PS3. Pay once, download it on all of them. Flower, Flow, DCUO, a couple of others.
The optical format is mostly irrelevant; the Cell processor in the PS3 is a *completely* different architecture than the PS4, as well as being very byzantine and complex. It'd take them a lot of time and R&D to create an emulator, and even then it probably wouldn't be 100% compatible with old games. They might be able to put a Cell processor in there, but that would bump up the cost of the console considerably. This is a very different situation than say the Wii being able to play Gamecube games, because the Wii was basically just a souped-up Gamecube from a hardware POV.
Yes, in a perfect world everyone would love to keep their PS3 games, but Sony made the right choice by going with a more standardized architecture, even if it meant sacrificing backwards compatibility. The PS3 will still be there to play your old stuff.
I think they still produce (new) PS2 slims.
Really, and Netflix sub on top of that, I assume (otherwise it would be a great deal)?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I can sell you all the PS3 hardware you'd like for $599 each.
With this console the question of running Linux won't even matter. The question will be how long until it boots Windows. It is no longer running hardware that is far removed from what exists in standard PCs, now it will be a question of getting the PS4 to dual boot the Sony PS4 OS and Windows, so that it can run Windows games as well.
The PS3 was somewhat useful to run Linux on from a computational standpoint because of the raw power of the Cell CPU. The PS4 runs an x86 instead; we can get more x86 computing power than this for $400 in other places and a warranty as well. The people who will want to dual boot this system are gamers who want the largest possible library available to play on their TV.
I would further bet that the console that wins this round, between PS4 and XBOne, will be the one that can first run windows games well on the TV. We would expect Microsoft to have a lead on this, but only time will tell.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yes, please buy bunches of these or some XBox Ones if you must. Life is too short to waste on tech support and these things can be maintained by a tweenager once the initial internet connection is established.
If I remember correctly, wiggling the Adventure cartridge in the old Atari game console could give you a substantially different map. Probably because it corrupted some RAM somewhere.
Holy crap! Maybe that's how I got into that bizarre backdoor mode in Adventure when I was a kid? It only happened once and I could never replicate it. My character slipped into or behind the wall in one of the castles once, allowing me to wander around the map safe from the dragons until I went back through to the other side then it returned to normal and I could never do it again. It was weird but exciting!
Goog unboxing
It also has the best battle system of any FF, I happen to like the story since it's easier to follow than in the other FF games (thanks to the log), I don't mind that the game is streamlined because I'm ocd and this actually lets me enjoy the game and my surroundings instead of hunting for items that I won't use up anyway because I'm ocd. Oh yeah and consumables don't matter in this game because you're all healed up after each battle. This let's you treat each encounter separately and allows them to test you more because they assume you will be at full health. Also, for a new composer to the series, the music is fresh and sounds amazing. I just love this game.