[Robo]

Today Sony finally made their next-generation console official. It's called PlayStation 4, it's coming this holiday season, and it's the biggest change to PlayStation ever.

For the first time, Sony is building their console on the X86 PC architecture. (Previous PlayStations used often-bizarre custom architectures.) It features an AMD-built 8-core CPU and "next generation" GPU, and 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, exceeding expectations. As with the Wii U, the CPU and GPU are on a single die, providing cost and heat savings, and hopefully making for a smaller console. (Why "hopefully"? Well, we'll get to that in a second.) It features a significantly faster Blu-ray drive than the PS3, and of course it has a hard drive too. I/O wise, it now supports USB 3 in addition to Gigabit Ethernet, and it now features support for 802.11n Wi-Fi. (If you're living in the stone ages, you'll be pleased to know that the PS4 continues to feature the old analog AV Multi port, in addition to HDMI.)

The PS4 features an all new interface with a focus on immediacy; Sony wants to greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to boot up the console and hop into a game. The PS4 features a new suspend mode that causes the PS4 to enter a low-power mode with the game in progress saved, so that picking up exactly where the player left off requires only a press of the Power button. Similarly, Sony designed the PS4 to be able to play games while they are being downloaded.

The biggest change to the PS4, however, is the all-new controller, which is the biggest change to the DualShock ever.



The shape has been substantially tweaked for the first time, with a rounder, more "organic" shape. The analog sticks have been redesigned, with new concave tops. The L2 and R2 triggers now have a larger, concave shape instead of the weird tippy convex surfaces they had before. In the center of the controller is a capacitive touchpad with support for two points of input. On the back of the controller is a new light bar that can change color, both as a signal to the player (i.e., when you are low on health, it might flash red) and to enable more precise motion-tracking with the PS4's new depth-sensing camera (though the controller also still features built-in accelerometers and a gyroscope, too). On the bottom of the controller is a headphone jack for the (included!) chat headset. Like the Wii Remote and GamePad, it has a tiny speaker. It still features an internal rechargeable battery that charges over USB, and now it will be able to charge when the PS4 system is in standby.

For the first time, the controller loses the Start and Select buttons that have been a feature of every PlayStation console and handheld to date (and the NES and SNES before them). In their place are two new buttons, Share and Options. Options is self-explanetory, but Share is more interesting. The PS4 automatically saves a recording of the last 15 minutes of gameplay, in any game; pressing the Share button allows you to scrub back through that, make a clip, and upload it to YouTube and such. What's more, the PlayStation 4 can actually steam gameplay video live over the internet. You can literally watch your friends play games on their PS4, live, from your iPhone.

Sony shared a great deal about the PS4's hardware, its controller, and its interface. What they didn't do — oddly — was show us what the thing looked like. Sony never showed off the PS4 console itself, which was...an odd choice. The design is almost certainly near final; they'd really only be able to make very minor tweaks so close to launch. But for whatever reason — wanting to save something for E3, maybe? — they didn't show it, which has disappointed many gamers and pundits (considering how much Sony was hyping this reveal).

Luckily, they did show plenty of games. From Sony's own studios, we have Killzone: Shadowfall and inFamous: Second Son, which both look predictably gorgeous (especially Killzone, which has long been Sony's graphical showpiece) as well as predictably...predictable. They also announced two new IPs, which are more interesting. The first is Knack. It's a platformer adventure in which you play as a robot, named...Knack, that can add parts on the fly and grow, and interact with the environment in interesting ways. It's directed by Mark Cerny, who is actually the lead architect of the PS4 hardware, and he described it thusly:

Originally Posted by Mark Cerny The result is gameplay which is a little bit like Crash Bandicoot, and a little bit like Katamari Damacy, in that the Knack can get quite large indeed. [...] There’s also a touch of God of War in there, in that there is an epic feel to the game in places.

Sony also announced Driveclub, a racing game from their Evolution (MotorStorm) studio, which serves as a more arcadey counterpoint to Sony's flagship "real driving simulation" Gran Turismo. They also announced a bunch of partnerships with third parties. Diablo III is coming to PS3 and PS4; Bungie's new epic series, Destiny, is coming to PS3 and PS4 with "exclusive content;" and on the indie side of things, the new game from Jonathan Blow (Braid) , The Witness, is launching on PS4 exclusively, at least as far as consoles go. (It's sort of like a prettier, full-motion Myst.) There's also all the games that were announced before but couldn't officially be announced as next-gen, even though we knew they were, like Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs. And Square announced they would...announce a new Final Fantasy for the PS4, at E3 in June.

All in all, I'm impressed, though puzzled and a bit disappointed we didn't get to see the actual console. (Also, I was hoping for a spiffy new logo. But nope — it's the PS3 logo, just with a 4 instead of a 3.) Pretty much all the new stuff was leaked, but we were only expecting 4GB of memory, so 8GB is a pleasant surprise.

No price was announced, but I'm quite sure it's going to be $399.