PlayStation Meeting 2013 Recap – The PlayStation 4 Is On The Way!

The PlayStation 4 was revealed at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting 2013 last night. The event was first teased teased via Youtube on January 31st of this year. The video was followed by four more, recapping the successes and innovations of PlayStation’s five previous pieces of gaming hardware. It all culminated in the February 20th event where Sony revealed their vision for their next generation home console, with a release window of Holiday 2013.

The PlayStation Meeting lasted over two hours, and showcased the new console, its features, their goals for the future, new games, and interviews and presentations from developers working on next generation games. While many features were detailed, many questions were still left unanswered, from release date and launch price, to how exactly preexisting and new services will actually function on the new hardware. Smartly so- the amount of information is overwhelming as it is, and they have saved plenty of content for stealing the show at E3.

PS4 Sizzle Reel

Below is a brief recap of many of the reveals from the show. We will get into more detail about some specific features as the details become available later this spring.

PS4 Architecture
Described as being not unlike a PC.
X86 CPU
Custom, enhanced PC GPU
8GB GDDR5 RAM
Local HDD Storage
Secondary custom chip for background activity

DualShock 4 Hardware
Improved analog sticks
Enhanced rumble
Lower latency
Touchpad for input
Headphone/microphone jack
Share button
Light bar for interaction with stereo camera peripheral

Features

• “Developed by game creators for game creators”
• No console shown – referred to system running games in real time as a “prototype”
• Social aspect highly stressed in UI, integration with Facebook and Ustream
• Use the share button on the DS4 to instantly upload videos or pictures of gameplay
• Spectating to be a huge part of social experience
• Use the share button to stream gameplay. Friends can watch, message, and even jump in/take over your game if the player get stuck. The game streams from player’s console, but receives input from friend’s controller
• Custom, secondary chip allows for background activity, allowing for the downloading of games, patches, etc. while playing games, watching movies or streams
• Start playing a game that isn’t finished downloading, and play as it finishes downloading in the background
• Ability to suspend and resume games, game state stored in RAM- just like the Vita
• System “gets to know you,” offers relevant content, even downloads games before you buy
• Goal of these initiatives is zero time spent waiting to play games- emphasis on “Play”
• Gaikai, Sony’s recent streaming game acquisition allows for instant streaming of games from store, try before buy potential
• PS4 will stream content to Vita via remote play, where the PS4 is the server using its power to run the game, which is then displayed and controlled from the Vita
• Goal is for all PS4 games to be played on Vita
• Phones and tablets will also be able to interact with PS4
• Gaikai’s goal is for entire PlayStation catalog to be accessed anywhere from any device, any time
• No native PS3 backwards compatibility, as of now streaming appears to be the only way
• Stereo camera peripheral for communicating with DS4 and Playstation Move, allows for motion and space tracking

Game Announcments
Knack – Mark Cerny, Studio Japan
Killzone: Shadow Fall – Guerilla Games
DriveClub – Evolution Studios
inFAMOUS: Second Son – Sucker Punch
The Witness – Jonoathan Blow (Braid), timed exclusive
Deep Down – Yoshinori Ono, Capcom
Final Fantasy (untitled) – Square Enix
Watch Dogs – Ubisoft
Diablo III – Blizzard, for PS3 as well
Destiny – Bungie
See our article on game reveals for more information and trailers

PS4 Developer Commentary

All in all, Sony managed to squelch many of the worries that PlayStation fans and critics alike had about this event. After a lackluster year for the PS Vita that was accentuated by the half-hearted presentation in Japan last week, there was cause for concern that Sony would hit another wrong note with this event by underwhelming with the PlayStation 4 or worse; not showing it at all. Fortunately, they managed to pull things together and make stunning reveal after reveal for the two hour duration of the show. Their vision for PlayStation 4 goes far beyond many of our expectations- it is not just a graphical upgrade or a new control gimmick as we had feared. They are taking off in a new direction, fixing nearly all of the issues that plagued the PS3 this generation, and creating a vision that could bring great, new things to modern gaming.

Now the wait for E3 begins, where we will hopefully be sinking our teeth into a plethora of more in-depth details about what is to come with PlayStation 4 this holiday season and beyond. Stay tuned.