This is the PlayStation 4

So how about that event? Pretty bonkers, eyh? I’d say so. Last night gave us the official announcement of the next PlayStation and while we didn’t get to see the thing, we got a lot of details surrounding it. Also briefly shown was the new PlayStation Eye and the Dualshock 4. The latter packing all the features that were recently leaked like the front touch pad and share button.

PlayStation 4
The system itself is powered by a custom AMD Jaguar chip that contains 8 x86-64 cores, an enhanced GPU able to generate 1.84 teraflops of processing power and 8 GB of GDDR5 RAM. As proven by games like Killzone: Shadow Fall and Driveclub this should be enough to get things started on the next generation of PlayStation hardware due this holiday season. The Blu-Ray player has a slight increase in reading speed going from the PS3’s 2x to 6x which should make those mandatory installs go by a bit faster.

DualShock 4
The DS4 keeps most if its original design except for a few tweaks while also boasting a new set of features. The sticks are no longer convex but rather concave which should give a sturdier grip if your thumbs get all greasy. The start/select buttons are replaced with an “Options”-button which will operate the same set of features as the old buttons did. On top of the controller you’ll find a LED light bar that pretty much behaves like the Move with shifting colors to identify players, but also indicate when you get your ass kicked in games. The camera which is starting to resemble some other piece of hardware I’ve seen before, features 2 cameras and 4 microphones that uses a combination of the controller’s LED and sound to perfectly locate you in the room. The device also promises a much improved Move tracking which will reduce latency. The much talked about touch pad provides new inputs to games that seeks to support it. A headset jack is implemented and lo and behold a headset will come bundled with the system. The new Share button serves at least two functions for the time being. Which brings us over to …

Sharing is caring
One of the features presents you with an interface for selecting clips from the last minutes you’ve played which you can tag and upload to various social services. So far Facebook is confirmed but you’d imagine Youtube would be a no-brainer. The share button also allows you to stream your game to services like Ustream (and we would assume somewhere on the XMB) where people can watch and comment on your gaming. The feature is further enhanced by the possibility for other people to “join” your game and give you special items like weapons and potions. Sounds very cool, but also sounds like a feature I would imagine a lot of developers will forget to care about.

Other tidbits
The system will support remote play through the Vita over wifi. This is not a solution that is guaranteed to work with every game, but promises have been made to at least try to make most games compatible with the mode. The Vita will also function as a second screen, a feature that will also be made available on smart phones and tablets through a new PlayStation app. Second screen can be used for gamey stuff like maps and inventories, but you can also shop games through the SEN-store and download them to your system at home. If you fancy stalking your best friend’s progress in Killzone: Shadow Fall you will be able to through the sharing system. A much loved feature of the Vita is its sleep mode and this will be supported by the PS4. Suspend mode basically let’s you pause your progress, put your system to sleep and continue where you left off in an instant instead of waiting for your console to boot and load the game. It is great on Vita and it’ll be great here. The new background features lets you download updates, patches, games and synch stuff while you’re doing stuff that is much more fun than watching progress bars. You can even start playing digital games as they are downloading which is pretty neat. The PS4 is also said to learn and adapt to your taste. What this means is that while you are browsing the SEN store for the next thing to play, the system might start downloading a title it thinks you’ll like so it’ll be good and ready to play in an instant if you decide to buy it. Speaking of instant, with the acquisition of Gaikai Sony predicts a host of new streaming possibilities. One of them is instant demos where you can just start playing a game you are curious about, as well as providing access to the complete PS3 library from the cloud. Fancy stuff indeed and it comes in handy considering it won’t be backwards compatible. Recently confirmed is the fact that it will be used game-friendly and that an always online connection is not required. Those worried are hereby allowed to breathe.

Now what?!
Well, we wait. A lot of potentially great games and features were on display last night, and with the support of 149 third party developers in addition to their own 1st party studios I think this holiday season will be quite an eventful one. We expect E3 to be a party and we can’t wait to see what the system actually looks like, not to mention the price tag hanging from it.