The Game Developers Conference has been an enriching experience for its attendees this year, especially with insightful panels from the likes of some of the game's most respected writers and developers.
Due to the presence of the gaming press, studios have taken the opportunity to unveil new games at the event, including Battlefield 4, Metal Gear Solid 5, and a new Total War game. Likewise, Sony is holding a large presentation at GDC to talk about the PlayStation 4.
Today, Sony unveiled new aspects of the PlayStation 4 console, including the system's hardware, the controller, remote play, and the system's user interface (UI).
According to Sony, the PlayStation 4 is designed as a "central device in the living room" much like its predecessor, the PlayStation 3 was. Essentially, Sony is intending for the PS4 to serve as a replacement.
Unlike Microsoft's focus on a casual audience with the Kinect, Sony intends to target 'core gamers' as its main audience with most—if not all—of its features developed with gamers in mind. The console is designed to be performance-oriented and has hardware specifications to match.
Here's what it contains:
– PS4 CPU: 64-bit x86 arch, low power consumption, low heat, 8 cores, 8 HW threads, 2MB L2 cache per 4 core group, 32kb L1 I/D-cache
– PlayStation Shader Language, similar to HLSL, supports shaders similar to DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0
– PS4 RAM – 8GB 256 bit GDDR5
– PS4 GPU supports tessellation
– A "very large hard drive"
Sony has learned from its mistakes with the PS3, which was difficult for developers to work with. To that end, the PS4's development environment will allow developers to debug their code as they would on the PC.
Sony is also making it so that developers will not have to perform any special programming to implement streaming and sharing for their games as it's all done through the PS4 hardware automatically.
PS4 Controller
According to Sony, the PS4 controller has been redesigned (from the PS3's DualShock 3) to for better ease of use.
– An "Options" button replaces both Start and Select.
– A new system button has been added, called "Share", which allows users to share their gameplay footage and screenshots on the system's built in social network.
– The L2/R2 buttons have been given a new curved design to prevent players' fingers from slipping.
– The newly implemented analog touchpad has a resolution of 1920×900.
– The PS4 controller will also come with a headset port.
– PS4 multi-player controller colors are Blue, Red, Green and Pink.
– The PS4 will charge controllers even while off.
– The PS4 controller light bar can be used for muzzle flasjhes, health bars and other gimmicks.
PS4 Eye
Sony has a new PS4 Eye in the works that is set to offer high sensitive dual color cameras running at a resolution of 1280×800, 12 bits per pixel, and 60hz.
– The PS4 Eye camera will hook up directly to the PS4 through a special port. It won't work on your PC.
– Sony's suggested uses for the Eye camera include making walkthrough videos with your face in it, speech recognition, and killcam taunts. The camera is also capable of detecting players through the PS4 controller's light sensor bar, so a game might be able to move the split screen around depending on where its players are sitting.
Finally, the PS4 will come with an increased PSN friend limit, so you won't have to delete people from your list.
