Sony’s big PS4 conference today went over fairly well as they were able to show a lot of interesting games running on their upcoming system with fairly impressive specs as well as a nicely overhauled online experience and some basic shots of the final version of the DualShock 4 (as you can see above). Things we still don’t know about the system include how fast its x86 processor and die-sharing GPU are, what the console itself will look like, what the system, games, controllers, etc. will cost, it’s precise release date (aside from this Christmas-ish), and whether or not it’s plethora of online sharing features will come with a yearly price tag or not. Check after the jump for a long list of what was revealed.
-“Playstation wants to win the war against reality.”
-PS Vita’s potential will be unlocked by bringing it to the living room, but discussed later this year
-Going with the name Playstation 4
-Caters specifically to developers to make it as easy as possible for them to make games
-Architecture: PC-like architecture, x86 processor, 8GB GDDR5 shared memory, specialized GPU, CPU and GPU on same die
-Dualshock 4 controller – joysticks and triggers overhauled, rumble enhanced, latency lowered, “light bar” to identify players and a “stereo camera” like Kinect, touch pad in middle of controller, “share” button
PS4’s suspiciously Kinect-like “stereo camera”
-Showed Unreal 4 demo running live on the system without issue
-PS4 game announced: Knack where you presumably play as a little robot dude that can build himself up with certain objects around levels to grow bigger and get more powers
-Power button will suspend/resume gameplay by saving progress in RAM
-Uploads/downloads handled by separate processor – games can be played by updating or downloading
-User interface shown. Cross between XMB and current Xbox interface
-Easy to stream or share video of gameplay at any time, can even remote play games running on friends’ systems
-Facebook integration for use with real pictures and names (while apparently not dropping anonymous avatars and names)
-Companion apps for mobile platforms and PS Vita will allow access to many of the new community features
-Windows 8 like customization features showing game news and information
-Prediction properties where they say they’ll download games before you even purchase them if you’re likely to so you can play them instantly
-Gaikai, as expected, is integrated into PSN for PS4. Making “Fastest gaming network in the world.”
-Virtually any PS4 game should be available for immediate full-version streaming demo through PSN
-Facebook and Ustream integrated into PS4’s PSN.
-Share button broadcasts your gameplay in real time, can allow friends to send comments right to your screen in real time or allow your PSN friends to actually take control of your game in real time
-Remote play built into architecture in PS4 — “long term goal” is to have every PS4 game capable of off-screen play on PS Vita without lag
-PS3 games not natively supported on PS4, but planning in the “long term” to be able to stream PS1, PS2, and PS3 games to PS4 via the PlayStation Cloud
-PlayStation Cloud services will be rolled out in phases
-Killzone Shadowfall announced with “gameplay video”. Looked reasonably like gameplay, but with more cinematic camera control. Particle, post-processing, and environmental effects noticeably better than current gen games. Physics noticably inferior to some current-gen technologies like PhysX. Definitely a cool-looking FPS, looks a tad less floaty than Killzone 3, with perhaps a more involved story.
-DriveClub. Focusses on racing clubs challenging each other or completing built-in challenges. In first-person to allow you to feel like you’re in the vehicles with details down to the direction of fibres in the seat materials and rainbowing of surfaces when they’re been waxed.
-Suckerpunch exclusive for PS4: Second Son. A Half-Life 2-like locked down world where people have dangerous superpowers so security must be harshly maintained to prevent damage to average citizens. Person shown with fire/warping ability fighting against “the man”.
-Says that PlayStation is trying to allow smaller developers to be able to bring their games to PS4. (not terribly likely)
-Braid developer making The Witness will be “debuting” the game on PS4 (timed exclusive). Focuses on a compact open world with new interesting things around every corner and no filler/redundancies. Says game is 25 hours long without any optional stuff completed. Features cryptic mazes hearkening to those in Fez even though it’s a first-person game.
-Killzone Shadowfall gameplay video now available on Killzone facebook page thanks to PS4 share button.
-Quantic Dream showed a tech demo of a new engine they have running on a PS4 showing a very emotive and photorealistic old man
-Media Molecule talked about “recording your dreams” and “the tyrrany of the polygon”.
-Move controller usable on PS4, showed a demo of community 3D sculpting using the PS4
-Move controllers also used in MM presentation for controlling sculpted puppets
-“Almost every” 3rd party company has pledged support for PS4
-Capcom first with Mr. Ono of Street Fighter fame sharing a new MT Framework engine they’re developing for the PS4 codenamed “Panta Rhei”
-New IP from Capcom running on the Panta Rhei engine shown called “deep down”. It’s a medieval game with knights/monks/etc. going through a cavern and battling a dragon. Also showed use of the PSN to ask a friend for help in the game.
-Square Enix’s CTO, Mr. Hashimoto, real-time cinematic demo shown built on their Luminous engine. It was the same video that was used to unveil the engine around E3 last year, I guess it’s revealed now that it was running on the PS4. Physics better in this engine than in others shown thus far, with the possible exception of Unreal 4.
-A new Final Fantasy is in the works for PS4 and will be shown at this year’s E3
-Ubisoft (who are jerks recently) talked about Watch Dogs for PS4 revealing more details, also showed a live gameplay demo of the game running on PS4. Game looking just as good, if not better than it did at last year’s E3.
-In Watch Dogs, player walks down the street gaining money by hacking people’s accounts and ATMs. Is able to prevent a lady from being stabbed by predicting a crime and chasing the criminal. Slow down the criminal by exploding a fuse box, listen to police radio to know when they’re getting close, activate street barricades to stop cop cars, and stop/start a transit train to make their getaway.
-Blizzard Entertainment makes a surprise appearance announcing a strategic partnership with Sony to “take over the world”. Diablo 3 is being developed for the PS3 and PS4. (I don’t think anyone particularly cares). They’re introducing a Torchlight 2-like 4 player local/online co-op mode to the game as well.
-Activision’s CEO came out as well. Says more or less that there’ll be ports of most of their games as usual for PS4.
-Bungie’s Destiny will also be coming to the PS4, showed some more in-game footage (which looks like it’s running on current-gen hardware still).
-It’s still quite Halo-looking with the exception of the “persistent online world”.
-Bungie will be putting forth some “PlayStation exclusive content” (likely DLC) for Destiny as well, and the game (following a trend now) will be coming to both PS3 and PS4.
-PS4 is coming out “Holiday 2013”
Are you excited for Sony’s next generation console, are you holding out for what Microsoft has in store, or are you just going to go with the PC and be done with it? Tell us in the comments!