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Its official folks PS4 is on its way discuss.
Veteran designer Mark Cerny, who headed up architecture on the new console, introduced the PS4 at an event today in New York City.
"It is a powerful and accessible system," he said. "And it has a deep feature set to support the ongoing evolution of gaming itself."
The PS4 has 8 gigabytes of RAM and comes with a "massive" hard drive, Cerny said.
The controller looks exactly like the prototype that has been showed. It has "share" and "options" buttons as well as a touchpad in the center.
You can suspend/resume the system instantly by pressing the power button. A secondary custom chip will handle downloads and uploads so you can get games onto your console even when it's turned off. You can also play games while they're being downloaded, Cerny said.
You can also stream gameplay footage and "spectate"—that is, watch other people play games—on the new machine.
Sony's PlayStation 4 will allow users to play games as those very games are downloading. The PS4 will have a secondary custom chip for background downloading and processing.
Sony's goal is to learn enough about its players' behaviors that the console can guess what individuals are going to buy and download those games even before they purchase them, Mark Cerny said during Sony's conference today.
Cerny also said that having this much video running around will allow players to share and view video at will: You'll be able to browse through videos of potential opponents before you play against them in a game, or view streaming videos on a PS Vita or "companion apps" on tablet hardware. Players will also be able to interact while watching each other play, or even "take over the controller" remotely via video streaming.
Gaikai's Dave Perry took the stage to announce a bunch of new "social" features for the PS4 today: including Ustream/Facebook support, streaming capabilities, and and "remote play," which allows you to play PS4 games on your Vita
Your friends list can be expanded to include accounts from third-party services like Facebook, including real-world names and profile images. You can record and share videos and screenshots, including streaming your content live. You can access the PS4's online services not just from your PS4, but from phones and tablets as well, queuing up downloads and messaging friends.
Much of this is handled via a "share" button right on the front of the control pad.
PlayStation 4 will stream PS1, PS2, PS3 games
The PlayStation 4 will use the "PlayStation Cloud" service to stream PS1, PS2, and PS3 games, solving the backward compatibility problem with technology developed by Gaikai. This functionality was first reported last week by the Wall Street Journal, and confirmed today during the PlayStation unveiling event.
In the presentation, Gaikai founder David Perry expressed PlayStation's desire to use this service to stream "everything ever," but no specific games were revealed. On one hand, that suggests the PS4 isn't natively able to play legacy discs; on the other hand, there's tech built in to play those games on the system via streaming.
This is part of "PlayStation Cloud," the services of which will be rolled out gradually.
PlayStation Move compatible with PS4, Media Molecule shows
During today's PlayStation Event in NYC, Media Molecule's Alex Evans revealed the studio has married the PlayStation Move controller with the PS Move, Sony's motion peripheral originally designed for the PS3. The Move was demonstrated as a sculpting tool with the PS4, among other things.
Really, the entire demo was an artistic suite, showing the Move being used as a paint brush and to control two dancing avatars. The sequence eventually culminated in a full rock show where players used Move to control individual instruments. While not Media Molecule's next game, per se, the demo was designed to showcase the creative power of the PS4.
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