PlayStation 4's Blu-ray drive is 3x as fast as PS3's, PSN friends list cap raised, and other tidbits from Sony's GDC panel

via engadget.com

The PlayStation 4's new DualShock 4 controller can be charged even while the PlayStation 4 is turned off. The PlayStation 4's new Eye motion camera has a tilt sensor so it can tell players when its facing the wrong direction or if it's fallen off your TV stand. The PlayStation 4's Blu-ray disc drive is three times as fast as the PlayStation 3's. In case it weren't clear, Sony's PlayStation 4 panel at this week's Game Developers Conference wasn't chock full of major revelations, but it did provide plenty of interesting little details about the PlayStation 4 and its various hardware companions.

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The New PlayStation 4: 10 Things You Need to Know

via hongkiat.com

On February 20th, the highly anticipated next-generation video game home console Sony Playstation 4 was announced to the world. It was the second new-gen console to be revealed following the launch of Wii U on 18th November last year.

Much to the disappointment of diehard PlayStation fans around the world though, the announcement didn’t seem to say enough about the new console (heck, they didn’t even reveal the casing design!).

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What Microsoft's next Xbox needs to do to keep up with the PS4

via digitaltrends.com

Sony’s PlayStation 4 is officially a real thing now, and while we might not know what it looks like yet – expect a shiny, black box – we know enough to have a general sense of the direction that the next-gen is headed in. As important as improved technical bells and whistles are, the big next-gen push highlighted in Sony’s presentation is on ease of use and accessibility. The PS4 will significantly enhance its social presence, with community-oriented features designed to foster increased brand loyalty. Sony’s Gaikai acquisition also adds value to the new platform, by way of remote play capabilities and promised future support for legacy titles on the non-backwards compatible consoles all through streaming capabilities.

While technically Nintendo was the first to enter the next-gen fray, Sony was first out of the gate for next-gen hardware announcements in 2013. This leaves Microsoft in a position of having to announce an Xbox 360 successor that acknowledges, however indirectly, the competition on some level. The NextBox will carry its own personality, of course, but the expectation is that many of the new features will compete with what’s out there. With April 2013 looking more and more likely as the announcement window for Microsoft’s next game console, we’re taking a moment today to consider what we can expect to hear once all is revealed.

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The PS4's processor and performance: what we know and what we think we know

via engadget.com

After all the press events, TV cameos and probing interviews, what do we really know about the PS4? The announcement of the next-gen console is a prime example of having an abundance of specs and a lack of knowledge. Although Sony put out a sheet of stats about the console's processor and memory, many of the words it used -- Jaguar cores, compute units, unified memory -- are more ambiguous than they may sound.

Nevertheless, even with all these foggy bits, there are some things -- five, in fact -- that we probably can predict about the PS4's hardware. They're listed after the break in order of decreasing certainty. All the way from confident logic down to... well, not quite flailing around with a butter knife during a power cut, but you get the picture.

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Sony reveals how the PlayStation 4 Eye works

via engadget.com

Sony's Shuhei Yoshida has dished the dirt on how the company's latest camera accessory will work. The PlayStation 4 Eye comes with a pair of 1,280 x 800 cameras, four microphones and an 85-degree field of view. The two lenses are designed to be used in a variety of ways, including triangulating the 3D space, gesture recognition, Kinect-style body tracking, and in conjunction with accessories like the Wonderbook or DualShock 4 controller. "It's not just a way to identify your player number, it also works like a PS Move," Yoshida said of the new DualShock's light bar. "It's an extension of the PS Move technology that we incorporated into the DualShock so that the camera can see where it is."

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PlayStation 4 tech specs revealed: AMD 'Jaguar' CPU, faster Blu-ray, 720p 3D camera

via theverge.com

We still have absolutely no idea what the PlayStation 4 looks like, but we're getting a better picture of what's within: Sony's just released a list of tech specs for the console. Confirming months of rumors, the PS4 will primarily have AMD silicon inside, in the form of a "single-chip custom processor" with eight AMD Jaguar CPU cores, and a next-gen Radeon graphics engine capable of 1.84 teraflops of performance.

Here's the full spec sheet:

Single-chip custom processor, with eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU cores and 1.84 TFLOPS next-gen AMD Radeon based graphics engine

8GB GDDR5 memory

Built-in hard drive

6x Blu-Ray and 8x DVD drive

USB 3.0 and auxiliary ports

Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1

HDMI, analog AV-out, and optical S/PDIF audio output

DualShock 4 controller, with two-point capacitive touchpad, three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer, vibration, light bar with three color LEDs, mono speaker, micro USB port, stereo headset port, extension port, 1000mAh battery

PlayStation 4 Eye camera, with two 1280 x 800 cameras, f/2.0 fixed focus lenses, 85-degree field of view, 30cm minimum focusing distance, four-channel microphone array

What does it all mean? Looking at the existing PlayStation 3, it's immediately clear that Sony's playing to its strengths while trying to address some of its former weaknesses.

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Live from Sony's PlayStation 4 event

via live.theverge.com

2013 is shaping up to be a big year in console gaming, with both Microsoft and Sony on tap to show new hardware. Sony is striking first with the likely announcement of the PlayStation 4 at today's event, but what does it have in store? Cloud gaming? 4K support? We're about to find out.

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New PlayStation will expand social features, could integrate mobile gaming, says WSJ

via theverge.com

Mere days before the successor to the PlayStation 3 is rumored to be announced, The Wall Street Journal has published a few more tidbits on what we might see. According to anonymous sources, Sony will be expanding on the console's current social features, allowing users to share achievements through Facebook and Twitter and upload gameplay footage to YouTube. These features were already present to some extent on the PlayStation 3, but we could be seeing a better experience in the future, in line with previous reports that the new PlayStation would emphasize social gaming experiences.

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Next PlayStation Will Stream Games Over The Web

via businessinsider.com

Sony's next PlayStation video game console will let you stream games over the Web, according to The Wall Street Journal.

That means some games won't need a regular disc. Instead, the games will be stored virtually on Sony's remote servers and beamed to your console.

The WSJ says the service will mostly be used for older games, and the next PlayStation will still let you play games stored on traditional discs.

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Rumor: The PlayStation 4 Will Cost Over $400

via gizmodo.com

Everybody is expecting Sony to announce the PS4 on February 20th that it's a forgone conclusion at this point. Now rumors are coming out about the price of the next generation system. Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun is reporting that the PS4 will retail for over $400. Expensive?

Specifically, the Asahi Shimbun reported a 40,000 yen price which translates to $428 in ol' greenbacks. For reference, the PS3 launched at 50,000 yen for the base model and 72,000 yen for the 60GB version. In the US, the launch prices were $500 and $600, respectively. So possibly a little more affordable than the launch of the PS3 but significantly more expensive than how much the PS3 costs now. Which to tell the truth, isn't that surprising.

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Is the PlayStation 4 Arriving on February 20th?

via gizmodo.com

Well here's something we weren't expecting. Sony just teased us with a super secret, super mysterious, super probably a new PlayStation (because, what else?) event next month. Let's start speculating and freaking out about a new console war.

We're finding out as much as we can, bu for now, set your watches for February 20th, where something big is going to go down in NYC. And you thought you'd have to wait until E3!

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Xbox 720 and PS4: All The Rumours And E3 2012 Speculation

via gamingbolt.com

In the spirit of concise writing and potentially lazy journalism, us writers love nothing more than to summarise stuff that has already happened. That said, when it comes to the rumours regarding Sony and Microsoft’s next-gen hardware, it can be hard to keep track of all the speculation that goes around the darkest corners of the net. Whether you’re just really bored, or want to refresh your memory on stuff that probably won’t come true, here’s our rumour round-up on the PS4 and Xbox 720.

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Sony Planning PS4's Arrival to Coincide With Next-Gen Xbox?

via gizmodo.com

Sony's gaming division is tracking the growing rumours of a new Microsoft console, with the aim being to release its PlayStation4 as near to it as possible — so there won't be a huge headstart for Microsoft this time around.

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