PlayStation 4 Announcement - The Round Up

UPDATE 1: According to Sony (speaking with EuroGamer), the PlayStation 4 will NOT block second-hand games.

UPDATE 2: CD Projekt RED has announced the Witcher 3 will be on the PlayStation 4.


If you live across the ocean and didn't happen to be awake past 11pm at night, you might have missed a slightly important announcement from Sony Computer Entertainment: The PlayStation 4 is coming, soon™.


Although the console was not physically revealed, its hardware (which Lead Engineer Mark Cerny described as a "supercharged computer architecture") and features were somewhat announced during the Sony PlayStation Meeting 2013.

The hardware, which Sony mentioned was attuned to the needs and request of its top development studios, is as follows:

• AMD "Jaguar" x86 Accelerated Processing Unit (CPU and GPU on-die) - 8-cores at a rumored 1.6Ghz/core.
• "Next Generation AMD Radeon Graphics" with 1.84 Teraflops of computing power, matching that of an HD 7850.
• 8GBs of GDDR5 Memory (Shared) Rated at 176GB/s - The same memory-type used in high-end PC GPUs, which is considered to have higher memory bandwidth over DDR3 (This benefits the on-die GPU).
• Integrated HDD - No mention of storage capacity - No SSD, sorry.
• Blu-Ray Drive x6 + DVD x8
• b/g/n Wireless Adapter + Bluetooth 2.1
• HDMI/AV/Optical
• Notably, a dedicated network controller, which is huge not only because it takes load off the CPU but because it allows for faster content download (which lets be honest, the PS3 wasn't the fastest car on the track when it came to download speeds).

Alongside the hardware specifications, the DualShock 4 controller (which was originally rumored to be abandoned), was announced.

According to Sony, the controller will introduce a few new features to the DualShock family:

• A smoother rumble engine.
• A touchpad.
• A new design for the R & L buttons.
• A share button.
• A headset jack.
• PlayStation Eye compatibility.

Sony followed up with announcing their new services for the PlayStation Network, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, which included:

• Improved network infrastructure.
• A set of PlayStation Network Mobile apps, shown on the Android environment.
• Cloud Streaming Games from your PlayStation 4 to your PlayStation Vita.
• Remote Assistance, which functions exactly like remote desktop (but for games).
• Instant share to Facebook and Youtube.
• Live streaming gameplay to UStream.

As for games, three big reveals took place during the conference: Killzone: Shadow Fall, Driveclub and Infamous: Second Son. Both games will be hitting the console near or at release according to several sources.

As for upcoming titles, Ubisoft (Watch_Dogs) and Bungie (Destiny) both visited, showing gameplay for their new games. According to Activision, PlayStation 4 users will have access to un-annouced, exclusive content for Bungie's Destiny.


During the presentation, we also saw two tech demos...one from Capcom (Titled "Deep Down") and one from Square Enix (Agni's Philosophy). Square-Enix also announced a new Final Fantasy title will be released later this year, but provided no details.