Sony Unveiled - PlayStation 4 - Features & Specs - Arriving this Holiday Season

The PlayStation 4 has been officially revealed during this evening's Sony's PlayStation Event, held at The Hammerstein in New York City. The new console is scheduled to launch Holiday 2013.

Sony last night announced its much-rumored next video game console, the PlayStation 4. Sony Computer Entertainment prez and CEO Andrew House unveiled the console with little more than a logo and a handful of concepts, though he did say it's coming in holiday 2013. Sony's next-generation gaming system, the PlayStation 4, promises social and remote capabilities. The new controller resembles that of the PlayStation 3, in addition to a touchpad and a "share" button. The Japanese electronics giant said the console will be part of a new ecosystem focused on

• hardware,
• software and
• "the fastest, most powerful gaming network."

Wednesday's announcement gives Sony a head start over Microsoft and an Xbox 360 successor.

Lead system architect Mark Cerny -- legendary game developer and creator of Marble Madness said that development of the PS4 started five years ago and since then, he's been exploring how to evolve "the PlayStation ecosystem." Speaking to the limitations of the previous PlayStation console, Cerny said he's been aiming to make sure "nothing gets between the platform and the game." An image of an old-timey hunter shooting Space Invadersships in the sky (in reality) was used as an example -- later, a more concrete example was given in the PS4's multitasking ability, as well as its ease of use. Cerny said

"We were able to create in PlayStation 4 a system by game creators, for game creators".

Double Fine president Tim Schafer and Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos were just two of several game devs that spoke to Sony reaching out and asking for input.

PS4 Specifications

• runs on x86 architecture, a "highly enhanced" PC GPU (with "almost 2 teraflops of performance"),
• local HDD storage,
• 8GB of GDDR5 system memory,
• 6x Blu-ray and 8x DVD drive,
• USB 3.0 ports,
• Gigabit Ethernet,
• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi,
• Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI,
• analog AV-out, and
• optical S/PDIF audio output.

He next unveiled the DualShock 4, which looks an awful lot.

DualShock 4 Features

• a new touchpad,
• a new light bar,
• a Share button,
• a mono speaker, and
• what looks like rubberized grips (in addition to the standard dual analog sticks, d-pad, triggers, shoulder buttons, and four face buttons). Internally, it's still got rumble functionality and a built-in, non-removable lithium ion battery.

In so many words, the DualShock 4 looks an awful lot like a DualShock 3 with some new bells and whistles.

Cerny talked software next:

• the PS4 can pause and resume mid-game on a system level, allowing players to multitask. Say you're playing Killzone: Shadow Fall and you desperately need to open another application on the PS4 -- that is apparently something doable on the PS4.
• He said a second chip dedicated to managing uploads and downloads will also help with the system's usability, meaning you can download games in the background or when the system's off.
• More importantly, however, you can start downloading a game and begin playing it as the download goes -- pretty great!
• As far as sharing goes, PS4 is heavy on social interactivity; Cerny said its social network will extend beyond the console to mobile and Vita. He's ambiguous about which platforms that'll mean, but it sounds like Sony's aiming to make it platform agnostic.
• There's also a Pinterest-esque social aspect for friends to share screens and video, which Cerny said applies to the PS4's "personalization" angle. "You'll see real pictures of your real friends," he said.

David Perry went next and talked about Sony's acquisition of Gaikai (he was the former head of game streaming company Gaikai, but now he's working with Sony). His game streaming service -- now dubbed "PlayStation Cloud" -- is being employed to run demos on PS4, allowing people to try any game they want instantly (rather than requiring a file download, as it is now). He also said that both Facebook and Ustream are being employed on PS4, using the DualShock 4's Share button; the idea here is that you'll share game clips and screenshots from within your PS4. Beyond just sharing games you've already played, you can also livestream -- to the point that a friend of yours who is spectating can actually jump into your game, via streaming, and help you out. But wait, there's more! Despite Remote Play being a function in the previous PlayStation console, Perry said it's also heading to PlayStation 4. A brief demo of Mark Cerny's PS4 game Knack was shown running on a Vita via PS4; Perry said latency should be imperceptible using Gaikai's (now bolstered) streaming tech. Perry gave one last tease: "everything everywhere." He's hoping that PlayStation Cloud will apply beyond the PS4 and Vita, to mobile devices as well. The service will roll out "in phases," Perry said, without giving more detail, though he did say that Cloud will power PS1, PS2, PS3, and PlayStation Mobile games on the PS4. the system is not natively backwards compatible with PlayStation 3 Blu-ray discs. The PlayStation 4 will be Sony Corp.'s first major game console since the PlayStation 3 went on sale in 2006. Microsoft Corp. is expected to unveil the next Xbox in June at the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles. Last fall, Nintendo started selling the Wii U, though it plays catch-up in some respects in bringing the ability to play high-definition games.

Although the Xbox 360 came out a year before PlayStation 3, Microsoft's game machine has been more popular, largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online. The original Wii has sold more units since its launch than both its rivals, but it lost momentum as the novelty of its motion controller faded. Sales of the new Wii U have been slow. Underscoring the importance of a new PlayStation and the U.S. market, Sony held the announcement event in New York rather than in Japan, as it had in the past. But PS4 price not revealed. The announcement marks what feels like one of the longest console generations to date, arriving six years, four months, nine days and 18 hours after the North American launch of the PlayStation 3. In fact, the time between the PlayStation 2 and 3's launch was six years, eight months and seven days. In contrast, the time between the original Xbox and Xbox 360 was a mere four years and one day. If the next Xbox launches later this year, it will have been nearly eight years since the Xbox 360's launch in November of 2005.  
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