The PS4's lead system architecture Mark Cerny has been interviewed by VG24/7 and said he describes the console as a "super-charged" PC because it offers developers greater flexibility and customisation to achieve their vision.
"We wanted the focus to be on the games that the creative directors wanted to make," Cerny explained, "rather than the minutiae of the hardware. That's universal. That's true whether you're talking Destiny with their 700-strong team or you're one guy doing everything. They want to focus on the creative vision."
He adds that Sony designed the PS4 so that it can evolve over time , "we have to balance that out with a rich feature set that they can use in the later years of the hardware. The hardware has to grow over time. That's why I refere to it as a super-charged PC architecture – there's more in than what you find in a PC."
Cerny adds that as a stable platforms developers can "bring titles to the world that couldn't exist otherwise."
Continuing he says "There are all these customisations, such as what we did to the GPU and other parts of the system to ensure that they would really be these systems that programmers could dig into in year three or four of the console-life cycle.
"The developers really have a chance to study that architecture because it doesn't change for many years. They can learn its secrets and get progressively better performance out of it. Consoles also provide a stable platform. This is really important because some developers need five years to create a game."
Sony UK and Ireland boss Fergal Gara has said the PS4 is the "most powerful gaming device ever conceived and certainly ever developed."
SCEE Europe president Jim Ryan has also vowed that the console will launch with "all guns blazing" later this year.
