PlayStation 4 : Everything you need to know

The Sony PlayStation 4 press conference has just wrapped up and with it a plethora of huge, and great news for the upcoming game console. Sony stated that the PlayStation 4 will inspire the next generation of gamers, and that the living room is no longer the center of the PlayStation universe. With the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Network, everything will center around the gamer.


The PlayStation 4 has been confirmed. It will have 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, an x86 CPU, an enhanced PC GPU, a local storage hard drive, a feature a supercharged PC architecture. Sony says the new PS4 will represent a “significant shift from thinking of PlayStation as merely a box or a console.” The PS4 will be a “gamer-centric” system, made by game developers for game developers. The gamer is in charge.

The new Dual Shock 4 controller revealed at the event gives players more in-depth control when they’re playing their games. It features a touchpad on the front that allows players to do many things, like control the player’s camera during cinegraphic events. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack for connection to products that will improve social gameplay, and a “share” button that lets you live-broadcast your gameplay to your friends on the PSN network.

The “share” button also lets you share games with your friends, meaning if you’re having a tough time in your game, you can invite a friend to help you out. Along with the “share” button feature, there is also a feature called “Remote Play” that lets you share games with others, or lets you play games from your PlayStation Vita device. If there are distractions in your general area, you can pause your game and switch on over to your PS Vita. You’ll start right where you left off.

The sharing feature is all part of Sony’s 5 key principles for the PlayStation 4′s UI. The principles are: Simple, Immediate, Social, Integrated, and Personalized. Sony’s new user interface emphasizes simplicity and speed, with everything you need to do only being a “button click away”. The user interface also emphasizes social gameplay, with Sony’s goal for the PlayStation Network to be one of the most powerful social gaming networks around.

While the PlayStation 4 won’t natively have backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3 games, it will definitely have it through the Gaikai cloud-gaming service. Sony and Gaikai are working together to bring a revolution to cloud gaming. Sony says that Gaikai is an investment in its players, and that millions of players would love to have all of their PlayStation games, from the past, present, and future, be available to them at any time. All of the old PlayStation games, from PlayStation 1 to PlayStation 3, and even the PlayStation Portable games, will be available in Gaikai’s cloud storage in the future. Not only will you be able to play these games on the PS4, but you will also be able to play it on your PS Vita, smartphone, tablet, and even PC.

Besides all of the new features and hardware shown off at the event, Sony also invited a lot of its partners on stage to show some of the new games you can expect on the PlayStation 4. There was Killzone Shadowfall, which looks absolutely beautiful in terms of graphics, and is complimented with intense gameplay, both of which will fully utilize the PlayStation 4′s hardware. Knack, which is a graphic’s intense game, blurs the line between story-line and gameplay. DRIVE CLUB, a team-based racing game, is filled with extremely detailed sports cars and challenged-filled tracks for all of you car-fanatics. InFamous: Second Son, an action-packed game filled with lots of killing and special abilities, is sure to bring back fans of the franchise as well as bring in a whole new audience.

Capcom showed off its new Panta Rhei game engine, which includes very detailed faces and realistic scenery, all of which will be utilized in its upcoming game, Deep Down. Square Enix showed off its next-gen technology that blurs the line between cinematics and gameplay. Blizzard announced its partnership with Sony, and that it will be bringing Diablo 3 and more games to the PS4. Last, but not least, Activision and Bungie show off Destiny, it’s new multiplayer, shared-shooter that will be available for the PS4 in the future.

While the PlayStation 4 event was jam-packed with new and exciting information, it was still disappointing that we didn’t actually get a look at what the PlayStation 4 will look like. However, from all of the features that we learned about, and all of the games we previewed, the PS4 looks to be an amazing and promising console.