Following the announcement of the PlayStation 4 today in New York, Sony also revealed the system specs behind the new console. This time around Sony has made the PlayStation 4 easier to develop for, and is centered around a “powerful custom chip” which contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art graphics processor.
The PlayStation 4 GPU has been enhanced to allow for easier use of the GPU for general purpose computing. The GPU contains a unified array of 18 compute units which collectively are capable of generating 1.84 Teraflops of processing power. This processing power can be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or any mixture of the two.
The PS4 is also equipped with 8GB of GDDR5 unified system memory this gives the system 176GB/second of bandwidth for a boost in graphics.
Simple – Powerful functionality just a button press away. Suspend and resume Play sessions. The minutes that it takes to boot a console are a thing of the past, like the PS Vita. Secondary custom chip that uploads and downloads in the background. Digital titles are playable while downloading.
Social – Dedicated always on video compression and decompression. Uploading videos while playing games, see what your friends are playing in real time. The new PlayStation Social network will be integrated with tablets, mobile phones, and looks to be the first true social network for gaming. Players will use real names instead of aliases and avatars.
Personalization – Adaptive system that learns you likes and dislikes, tailored content advertising that predicts what you want.
The PS4 will also integrate a number of “second screen” devices as well. Players can use tablets, mobile devices, and of course, the PS Vita to take content on the go. With the PS Vita, players will be able to seamless pull PS4 titles from their living room TV to the handheld’s OLED over Wi-Fi networks.
PS4 radically reduces the lag time between players and their content. PS4 features “suspend mode” which keeps the system in a low power state while preserving the game session. The time it takes today to boot a console and load a saved game will be a thing of the past. With PS4, gamers just hit the power button again and are promptly back playing the game at the exact point where they left off. Additionally, users can boot a variety of applications including a web browser when playing a game on PS4.
PS4 also enables games to be downloaded or updated in the background, or even in stand-by mode. The system takes it one step further by making digital titles playable as they are being downloaded. When a player purchases a game, PS4 downloads just a fraction of the data so gamers can start playing immediately, and the rest is downloaded in the background during actual gameplay.
Personalized, curated content On the newly designed PS4 menu screen, players can look over game-related information shared by friends, view friends’ gameplay with ease, or obtain information of recommended content, including games, TV shows and movies. The long-term goal of PS4 is to reduce download times of digital titles to zero: if the system knows enough about a player to predict the next game they will purchase, then that game can be loaded and ready to go before they even click the “buy” button. PS4 will further enrich users’ entertainment experiences, by meeting their potential needs.
Published: Feb 20, 2013 05:30 pm