Playstation 4 being announced tonight (probably)

[Steve]

Sony have a "future of Playstation" conference tonight which starts at either 11 PM or midnight UK time. They've rented a pretty big venue and apparently there's about 1,200 journalists attending, so it has to be PS4-related.

 

Rumours that I've read over the last week or so: -

 

It will come with a Kinect-like camera

You will be able to control it with your smartphone or tablet (like Smartglass on the Xbox)

It will have a controller with a touch screen on it that has a "share" button so can post shit that nobody cares about to social networks

It will have an Xbox Live-like subscription fee for some of the online functionality

 

But all the rumours could be complete shite of course. I guess we'll find out later tonight.

 

 

[doppelkorn]

I hope it comes with cool games like Wario Ware Smooth Moves, Mario Party 8, Mario Kart and wrestling games and Worms Armageddon but I reckon it will be loads of shooting games

[djdiggla]

GTFO. Madness. I can't afford/justify a next gen so hope they keep PSN for p3 alive for a few more years.

[Jacken]

would be cool if they show some game demos

[Steve]

The conference is being streamed live here starting in 40 minutes (11 PM): -

 

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2013/02/20/playstation-meeting-2013-livestream/

[djdiggla]

link not working for me. Post what they say. I thought about buying some Sony stock the other day and then again when you mentioned the conference this AM but don't have enough cash to make a day trader move like that and get much of anything out of it.

[jimmy penguin]

i hear it has a micropopcorn function.. cant wait..

[djdiggla]

What happened steve???

[scottie(the)goonie]

I was gifted a ps3 about 3 months ago that I hardly ever used. I should have left it in the box and sold it.

[Steve]

What happened steve???

 

It was pretty impressive. The actual system is powerful and they focussed on making it developer friendly, so they're now using an X86 architecture (basically the same as the PC) with 8GB of DDR5 (really fast) RAM that's unified. Devs should be able to tap the power much easier than they could with the PS3. The downside of this is that the PS4 will not be backwards compatible.

 

They didn't actually show the console at all, nor did they announce a release date (other than "holiday 2013") or price. The controller is another DualShock, but it has a touch pad on it, a dedicated "share" button and a headphone jack. Personally, this was the only real negative for me as I hate the DualShock controller layout.

 

The console has some pretty cool features: -

 

You can put the system into a low power sleep mode whenever you like. When you wake it up, it fires up pretty much instantly and you can carry on with your game from exactly where you left off.

 

When you look at your friends list, you can see what games your friends are playing (of course), but you can actually click on a friend and watch them playing a game.

 

You can stream your gaming sessions live via Ustream for other people to watch. Also, the system can record gameplay in real time, then you can upload it using the share button on the controller.

 

The PS4 comes with a Wii-like sensor bar that tracks the controller, although they didn't really talk much about this.

 

If you get stuck in a game, say you can't beat a particular boss, if I was online, for example, you could give me permission to take over your character and I could do it remotely and beat the boss for you, then hand control of the game back over to you. You can also allow your friends to leave you in-game messages.

 

Game streaming will be a feature, so you will be able to do remote play to a Vita. Sony said that "pretty much every game" will work with it. It works basically the same as the Wii-U - if you're playing a game on the TV and someone else wants to watch something, you can just switch to playing the game on the Vita instead. Later on they plan to add PS1, PS2 and PS3 games that you will be able to play via streaming, although how well that works remains to be seen because of the latency.

 

There's a dedicated chip that handles background downloads, so installing game updates and what have you won't be as clunky. Things like that can be done while the PS4 is in its sleep mode too. Also, if you buy a downloadable game, you can start playing it while it's still downloading.

 

The XMB (the PS3 user interface) has been ditched and instead they've gone with something that looks more like the Xbox Dashboard, but a much cleaner looking version. They said that simplicity was a big factor in some of their design decisions. What they showed looked very good, although a little unfinished maybe.

 

Game-wise, they showed a new Killzone, new inFamous, a new driving game called Driving Club (or maybe it was Driver's Club) and a new platform game whose name I can't remember. Those were the main exclusives. They also had representatives come out from several big publishers including Square Enix, Ubisoft, Activision etc. and demo either games or game engines, all of which were running on PS4 hardware. They announced a partnership with Blizzard who will be bringing Diablo 3 to the PS3 and PS4.

 

The games looked good, but not mind-blowing, although they were all unfinished code and it's hard to tell what they truly look like via fairly average quality streaming video. Some of the tech demos did look fucking good though - high end PC level graphics.

 

All in all, it was a really good show IMO and I think they did pretty much exactly what they needed to do. Had they changed the DualShock design, I'd have been quite hyped about buying one, although obviously that's a personal thing (that controller is fucking shit though, lol). I think the Wii-U is pretty much fucked now, cos what Sony showed off was leagues ahead of Nintendo's console in every respect, plus MS are still yet to show off what they've got up their sleeve.

[Guest broke]

Hopefully DICE will port BF4 out to PS4 and not PS3.

[Jacken]

I'm only impressed in watch dogs which is multiplatform. Other games look good, but not nextgen.

[d00ban]

That does sound pretty good! I'm with you on the shitty controllers though. They really are shitty

[Frost]

Is the HDD an SSD? It should be in this age

[Chris]

Is the HDD an SSD? It should be in this age

 

No SSD, it's an HDD. Sony said it was for capacity reasons, but I'm sure price goes into the equation too.

 

I'm interested to see what developers with 'games as art' remits do with the new hardware, and I'm also interested in what the massively increased power will afford physics, AI, and logic systems in games.

 

Truth be told though, right now I'm more excited by the GCW Zero.

[djdiggla]

 

What happened steve???

 

It was pretty impressive. The actual system is powerful and they focussed on making it developer friendly, so they're now using an X86 architecture (basically the same as the PC) with 8GB of DDR5 (really fast) RAM that's unified. Devs should be able to tap the power much easier than they could with the PS3. The downside of this is that the PS4 will not be backwards compatible.

 

They didn't actually show the console at all, nor did they announce a release date (other than "holiday 2013") or price. The controller is another DualShock, but it has a touch pad on it, a dedicated "share" button and a headphone jack. Personally, this was the only real negative for me as I hate the DualShock controller layout.

 

The console has some pretty cool features: -

 

You can put the system into a low power sleep mode whenever you like. When you wake it up, it fires up pretty much instantly and you can carry on with your game from exactly where you left off.

 

When you look at your friends list, you can see what games your friends are playing (of course), but you can actually click on a friend and watch them playing a game.

 

You can stream your gaming sessions live via Ustream for other people to watch. Also, the system can record gameplay in real time, then you can upload it using the share button on the controller.

 

The PS4 comes with a Wii-like sensor bar that tracks the controller, although they didn't really talk much about this.

 

If you get stuck in a game, say you can't beat a particular boss, if I was online, for example, you could give me permission to take over your character and I could do it remotely and beat the boss for you, then hand control of the game back over to you. You can also allow your friends to leave you in-game messages.

 

Game streaming will be a feature, so you will be able to do remote play to a Vita. Sony said that "pretty much every game" will work with it. It works basically the same as the Wii-U - if you're playing a game on the TV and someone else wants to watch something, you can just switch to playing the game on the Vita instead. Later on they plan to add PS1, PS2 and PS3 games that you will be able to play via streaming, although how well that works remains to be seen because of the latency.

 

There's a dedicated chip that handles background downloads, so installing game updates and what have you won't be as clunky. Things like that can be done while the PS4 is in its sleep mode too. Also, if you buy a downloadable game, you can start playing it while it's still downloading.

 

The XMB (the PS3 user interface) has been ditched and instead they've gone with something that looks more like the Xbox Dashboard, but a much cleaner looking version. They said that simplicity was a big factor in some of their design decisions. What they showed looked very good, although a little unfinished maybe.

 

Game-wise, they showed a new Killzone, new inFamous, a new driving game called Driving Club (or maybe it was Driver's Club) and a new platform game whose name I can't remember. Those were the main exclusives. They also had representatives come out from several big publishers including Square Enix, Ubisoft, Activision etc. and demo either games or game engines, all of which were running on PS4 hardware. They announced a partnership with Blizzard who will be bringing Diablo 3 to the PS3 and PS4.

 

The games looked good, but not mind-blowing, although they were all unfinished code and it's hard to tell what they truly look like via fairly average quality streaming video. Some of the tech demos did look fucking good though - high end PC level graphics.

 

All in all, it was a really good show IMO and I think they did pretty much exactly what they needed to do. Had they changed the DualShock design, I'd have been quite hyped about buying one, although obviously that's a personal thing (that controller is fucking shit though, lol). I think the Wii-U is pretty much fucked now, cos what Sony showed off was leagues ahead of Nintendo's console in every respect, plus MS are still yet to show off what they've got up their sleeve.

 

Dang. Sounds pretty awesome. Nintendo is fucked unless they can massively undercut MS and Sony like last time and be that system you buy in addition, not as an alternative.

[Jon]

[Chris]

Jon that's fucking hilarious!

[doppelkorn]

Tee hee

[Steve]

Some images of the dashboard: -

 

http://i.imgur.com/txyEltk.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/xYYx6y4.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/O4DMGU8.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/lJhtBFp.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/4rq143x.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/w4Dix9t.jpg

 

It looks more like the 360 dashboard than the PS3's XMB.

 

A few game GIFs: -

 

http://i.minus.com/ibjxCz37mFXzrX.gif

http://i.minus.com/iSylqprP2LVet.gif

http://www.abload.de/img/deepdown-16-7fps-290-1iosm.gif

http://i.minus.com/iLSORBYQiJAqD.gif

http://i.minus.com/ibkLh2II7UZlqe.gif

http://i.minus.com/izZWw9j6v7tvJ.gif

http://www.abload.de/img/secondson-16-7fps-290hhp6v.gif

http://i.minus.com/ibp2LYnmQJjEkC.gif

http://i.minus.com/iJtlFtkI2gR1P.gif

http://i.minus.com/ibkmWFX3ngHLMg.gif