PlayStation 4 – The Confirmed, Unconfirmed and the Unmentioned

Sony have just wrapped up a two hour long truly breath taking presentation for their next-gen console announcement the PlayStation 4. It seems Sony have learnt their lesson from the PS3 and gone are the complicated CPU architectures, immense technical explanations, meaningless tech demonstrations and more.

This time is was mere minutes into the show that Sony announced the console and they quickly jumped right to the action, the hardware, the games, the developers and more, in short, Sony did good.

There were a lot of leaks and rumour for the PlayStation 4 and it seems that for the most part these leaks were in fact correct.

Confirmed

• Eight core APU processor
• 8GB of high speed DDR5 Ram
• Powerful PC derived GPU/APU graphics card
• Blu-Ray
• Built In HDD
• New controller

The most prominent of the specs is the X86 architecture, this has been the firm basis of PC development for many years and its something that developers are extremely familiar with. This means that porting games to and from PC will be easier than ever and it bodes well for fans of multi-platform titles.

8GB of GDDR5 is incredible, while this may not sound a lot of ram compared to some high end PC’s, its the speed of this ram that will be a real game changer. The immense loading speed of this memory will allow for incredibly detailed and vibrant gaming worlds to be created.

Turn your console into server to stream your own games right to your Vita, Tablet, Smart Phone and more with Gai Kai, stream games from the cloud from the Sony back catalogue, live stream your gameplay to your friends for a social gaming experience like no other, or go one further and let your friend “take control of your game” remotely while you stream the footage to them… Cloud gaming needed an innovation, this is it and its going to be huge.

Unconfirmed

Sony were not about to give up all their cards at once, details about the price were absent and likely won’t see the light of day until E3 later this year.

Also out of sight was the hardware its self and we still don’t know what the console looks like. I highly expect that all the demos were running on developer hardware or a power PC and this isn’t uncommon for this kind of event, hardware design could still be in development, the hardware specifications however are now pretty much set in stone.

Release date wasn’t nailed down, but the end of the Sony show gave us the teaser that it will be with us this holiday season, although its still highly rumoured that this will only be for Japan and the US. UK consumers may have to wait until early 2014.

Unmentioned

Not all the rumours came true today and there were some glaring ommisions from the event. While we did see some truely epic looking games we didn’t hear from some other major studios. Many gamers were disapointed to hear nothing about The Last Guardian and its still unknown if this game is coming to PS3 or PS4.

Polyphony Digital were not on show with the new Gran Turismo and this is a big issue as Gran Turismo has always been the hallmark of the PlayStation brand, where is our GT6?

Naughty Dog were on show for the Vita launch with Uncharted and its one of the best offerings on the PlayStation brand, yet no mention of the game or the developer at the event.

Lastly we also didn’t hear from EA and while we do know that they are developing next-gen Battlefield 4 I think many gamers were watching just to see what EA could should.

As with all the unmentioned and unconfirmed details we have Gamescom and E3 and no doubt many more oppertunites before the release window to get hands on with the console, find out the price, see more game and I fully expect Sony will no go on the offensive of announcing regular details over the coming months.

Microsoft, it’s your turn next!