According to Sony’s Mark Cerny, he’s made the right decision in deciding on the PlayStation 4 system architecture. PS4 buyers are not only going to see an immediate gain in fidelity in the first run of games on the new hardware, but GPU customizations have made it so there’s ample room for improvement as developers become more proficient in developing for the platform.
Over the next few years, developers will unlock the secrets of PS4
In a recent interview with PlayStation Magazine, Cerny explained the immediate and long-term impact of the PS4.
“It’s very easy to make games for the system,” says Cerny. “Things are pretty much how they were in the PS1 days. Then over the next few years, as programmers get the chance to dig deeper, you’ll see improvements in graphics and simulation as PS4’s secrets are unlocked. That will happen because we did extensive customization of the GPU in PS4.”
As for the future of the PS4, Cerny says that they’ve intentionally put features in the console that might not be used right away. “We very intentionally put in a lot of features for developers to use in the years of the console lifetime. The launch titles are not likely to use them — they’re likely to use the hardware in a straight forward way. Then, over time, SPUs not used much by launch titles get progressively [integrated], to the point where something like The Last Of Us saturates them. You’ll see the same kind of adoption of more sophisticated techniques during PS4’s life cycle.”
From the sounds of it, Mark Cerny is very confident that he and the team of PlayStation 4 Engineers have made all the right moves with the new hardware. We’ll see if it pays off when the PS4 releases this November 15th.
