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Here's a link to the Live stream of Sony's unveiling of the PS4.

Also, now's as good of a time as any to discuss the new console.

Another stream:
http://www.gametrailers.com/netstorage/ ... index.html

Also, for those who can't watch streams - lots of constantly updated info in text form here:
http://www.engadget.com/

Edit: the "remote control access" to your console (where your friend over the internet can take over your gameplay) sounds pretty cool. Also, it looks like you can finally stream your games live using Ustream? I wonder if MS will use TWITCH instead... or maybe its own streaming network?

I'm 42 minutes into the live stream and it's a buffer fest on their UK server: http://uk.playstation.com/meeting2013/

Overloaded after scales tipped 2.7M connected viewers. I've given up getting back to the site, but the straming to PSVita sounds awesome, but they didnt say an awful lot about how cloud was going to work, unless I missed it due to the issues?

JohnC wrote:

Edit: the "remote control access" to your console (where your friend over the internet can take over your gameplay) sounds pretty cool.

No chance for abuse there.

Looks like you won't be able to play older PS1-PS3 games natively... Instead, you'll be able to play them "from the cloud", I guess in a similar way that the http://www.onlive.com works now... I wonder if MS has its own similar solution, especially since they haven't purchased OnLive....

UberGerbil wrote:

JohnC wrote:

Edit: the "remote control access" to your console (where your friend over the internet can take over your gameplay) sounds pretty cool.

No chance for abuse there.

I'm ok with that as long as no one is getting to my Mastercard info again...

(yes, I went there)

... No Kinect-like controller this time, still relying on this gay "Move" dildo... Oh well, maybe next year...

Edit: Diablo 3 was just announced for PS3 and PS4... Very fitting game for a consoles

JohnC wrote:

... No Kinect-like controller this time, still relying on this gay "Move" dildo... Oh well, maybe next year...

I guess you missed the stereoscopic camera earlier in the stream.

Odd...they didn't reveal the actual hardware. I'm guessing that we'll have to wait until E3 in June.

Slick and capable hardware and software. Expensively so. No way is this under $400.

No games.

Where have we seen this before? Vita. It failed. This will too.

Everything of note from third parties will come out for PS3 AND PS4 and gamers will choose PS3.

Lol, it is just a locked down PC...

Edit: R&D for the PS3 just a little too spendy Sony?

Dizik wrote:

JohnC wrote:

... No Kinect-like controller this time, still relying on this gay "Move" dildo... Oh well, maybe next year...

I guess you missed the stereoscopic camera earlier in the stream.

I did? What was the name for it?

JohnC wrote:

Dizik wrote:

JohnC wrote:

... No Kinect-like controller this time, still relying on this gay "Move" dildo... Oh well, maybe next year...

I guess you missed the stereoscopic camera earlier in the stream.

I did? What was the name for it?

They didn't actually name it. They referred to it as a "stereo camera" that can (and I'm paraphrasing) sense depth. It looks like it ships with the console, too.

Dizik wrote:

They didn't actually name it. They referred to it as a "stereo camera" that can (and I'm paraphrasing) sense depth. It looks like it ships with the console, too.

Well, sounds like it's not a very capable device since they didn't give it enough attention... Perhaps it's just an improved version of PS Eye camera...

Edit: Yea, it looks like an improved version of previous PS Eye:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/20/PlayStation4-eye/
Not many details about its features like "depth sensing"...

drfish wrote:

Lol, it is just a locked down PC...

Edit: R&D for the PS3 just a little too spendy Sony?

Yea... Just took Sony a little bit of time and a little bit of money to realize the fact that it's better (both from price and performance points, also perhaps to give developers easier development environment) to use custom PC hardware than to create "miracle" Cells

I bet everybody here has just been waiting for an opportunity to share screen shots and game reels with the push of a button, right to your facebook account! The next evolution in gaming is almost here, facebook compatibility!

Why so bitter? Just because you find video sharing feature useless doesn't mean other people will also think the same... I don't use Facebook a lot but many people do, including for sharing the videos from their smartphones... don't see why sharing videos of games would be less interesting for them, especially if they share it with their other friends or group members who also happen to play same games.

I'm finding it hard to comprehend why they won't be able to run PS1-PS2 emulation natively on the x86 processor. I had a friend who wrote a PS2 emulator a few years back, and while it had its bugs (come on, it was written by one guy), it definitely ran pretty smoothly. I think Sony, with all their resources, should be able to write PS1-PS3 emulators for x86 and have them execute very well.

Well... I guess it's more convenient (and more profitable ) for them to stream those games from cloud service than to allow the "native" play... Who knows, maybe they will eventually allow other devices with much less powerful hardware to access this functionality (theoretically they may even write a PC/Mac client for this or even build this capability into their future TV's)

Some technical details about it, from an official press release:

"The PS4 system architecture is distinguished by its high performance and ease of development. PS4 is centered around a powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art graphics processor.

The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has been enhanced in a number of ways, principally to allow for easier use of the GPU for general purpose computing (GPGPU) such as physics simulation. The GPU contains a unified array of 18 compute units, which collectively generate 1.84 Teraflops of processing power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two.

PS4 is equipped with 8 GB of unified system memory, easing game creation and increasing the richness of content achievable on the platform. GDDR5 is used for this memory, giving the system 176 GB/second of bandwidth and providing a further boost to graphics performance.


Main Processor

Single-chip custom processor

CPU : x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores

GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon™ based

graphics engine

Memory

GDDR5 8GB

Hard Disk Drive

Built-in

Optical Drive

(read only)

BD 6xCAV

DVD 8xCAV

I/O

Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0) ?AUX

Communication

Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)

IEEE 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)

AV output

HDMI

Analog-AV out

Digital Output (optical)

*Specifications are subject to change without notice"

No more technical details are available so far...

I loved the irony of douchebag Nate Fox announcing "Second Son" exclusively for ps4, with a rant about government control and no personal privacy.
it. is. sony - a company known for its policy of protecting personal freedoms and privacy. And, judging by direction they're taking with PS4, they're definitely going to ensure even more personal freedom & privacy!

I'll give this to Sony at least: it looks like they've made a concerted effort to make the PS4 easy to develop for. Instead of doing something crazy like Cell and claiming over the top function, this new system hits the desirable bullet points (full powered cores, lots of unified memory, modern GPU).

CampinCarl wrote:

I'm finding it hard to comprehend why they won't be able to run PS1-PS2 emulation natively on the x86 processor. I had a friend who wrote a PS2 emulator a few years back, and while it had its bugs (come on, it was written by one guy), it definitely ran pretty smoothly. I think Sony, with all their resources, should be able to write PS1-PS3 emulators for x86 and have them execute very well.

Because releasing an "HD" version (with no actual new features or HD textures) of old games will get them far more money.

Eurogamer has a quote from Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony Worldwide Studios, stating "[Consumers] purchase physical form, they want to use it everywhere, right? So that's my expectation...Used games can play on PS4."

Whether or not that means that you'll have to buy an activation code (similar to the online pass used by EA, Warner Bros, etc.) for second-hand copies remains to be seen.

I am surprised they have kept analog out in it.

AMD's standard for 8 core means its really a 4 core like what bulldozer is.

lilbuddhaman wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

I'm finding it hard to comprehend why they won't be able to run PS1-PS2 emulation natively on the x86 processor. I had a friend who wrote a PS2 emulator a few years back, and while it had its bugs (come on, it was written by one guy), it definitely ran pretty smoothly. I think Sony, with all their resources, should be able to write PS1-PS3 emulators for x86 and have them execute very well.

Because releasing an "HD" version (with no actual new features or HD textures) of old games will get them far more money.

I've been had a few times on that one, but I knew what I was getting into. Definitely enjoyed some HD replays of ICO, Shadows, and Okami.

I'm a semi-luddite still using a 720p television, but I'm still kind of excited about the PS4. I love my PS3 and it's not because of any technical reasons. I just like sitting on my couch and playing games. I can do that with my PC and my TV but I just like the brainlessness of a set top box.

Technology-wise, I agree with those who say it looks a little unbalanced towards the GPU side. 1.6GHz AMD Jaguar cores are going to be lots faster than 1.6GHz Bobcat cores, but single-threaded (and dual-threaded, and so on, up to n-1 threads) performance is going to drag, I fear. To the point that I wonder why they didn't use the Stars cores from Llano. Maybe I'll be surprised.

I'm inferring that they want to use a lot more compute than is used on the desktop right now. 8GB of unified memory could allow tricks that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

Yeah, that's probably a good point. Since they're building the OS specifically for this hardware there's probably much tighter integration.