Sony Reveals the PlayStation 4 – Sort of Dylan Duarte February 20, 2013 So, Sony officially revealed the PlayStation 4 without ever actually showing the console… which is fairly impressive. The system will run on an x86 processor, enhanced PC GPU, and 8GB of high-speed unified memory. Pressing the PlayStation button will now freeze your gameplay wherever you are and the system will enter a low-power state, similar to a sleep mode. A new secondary custom chip dedicated to background processing, downloading, and updating will allow you to continue playing as more operations are performed in the background. You can even play games as you download them. Unsurprisingly, there’s a heavy focus on social gaming. A share button located on the controller itself will allow you to share all sorts of game content, including video of whatever you’re currently playing. You can also have friends spectate as you play, even giving them control. Your Sony profile will actually pull information and pictures from existing social networks, though this seems to be optional. The PlayStation Network will expand from your console to the Vita and your smartphone, allowing you to take advantage of the features wherever you are, such as watching someone’s game on your smartphone while out of the house. The Vita will support remote play, though whether it’s local like the Wii U controller or cloud-based like the NVIDIA Shield is unknown at this point. Personalization is a big part of the PlayStation 4 experience. The system will learn what you like and suggest other things like it, with the hope that eventually it will begin pre-loading games it thinks you’ll purchase. GaiKai cloud gaming allows you to try any game in the PS store via streaming. They did reveal the new Dual Shock 4, shown above, which is more or less the same controller that was leaked not too long ago. The controller has enhanced rumble, a touchpad, the aforementioned share button, a headphone jack, and a lightbar on top to both identify players and allow a peripheral stereo camera to the 3D position of controller, not unlike Xbox Kinect and Move. There is no backwards compatibility. As far as games go, Sony showed off Knack, a robot platformer with a Jack and Daxter feel; Killzone: Shadowfall; inFamous: Second Son;Jonathan Blow’s The Witness; and DriveClub, which is coming from Evolution Studios. They also announced heavy third-party support, which developers like Capcom, Square Enix, and Blizzard on board, the latter of which will be bringing Diablo III to both the PS4 and PS3. Bungie, formerly with Microsoft, is also on board with their new IP called Destiny. What they didn’t announce was a price or a specific release date, but they did say it would be here for the holiday season. So, what do you think? Are you getting a PS4? Or are you going to wait to hear about the Xbox 720? Share This With The World!