In November, Nintendo dipped its toe into the next generation of game consoles with the release of the Wii U. As of last Wednesday, Sony seems to be diving in head first with the announcement of the PlayStation 4. Here are some of the highlights of their Feb. 20 New York press conference.

 

The Tech

The PlayStation 3 has easily been the most technically impressive of current-generation systems. It was obvious Sony was going to reach for the realistically rendered stars again — and they did. CPU and graphics capabilities match those of high-end gaming PCs, complete with eight gigabytes of memory to back it up. The PS3 was notoriously hard to develop games for, often resulting in busted versions of multi-platform games, but developers said the PS4 is much easier to work with. Sony is also betting big on game streaming. Supposedly, users will be able to stream demos instantly to their console without having to download anything. What’s more, users will be able to share videos or do a live broadcast of their gameplay with what seems to be a new PlayStation social network.

 

The Controller

The new Dualshock 4 controller looks almost exactly like the last three — other than the big rectangle mounted in the center. That rectangle is a new touchpad. It supports two inputs, which means it will easily be able to handle taps, swipes and pinches like an iPhone, though it has yet to be shown in action. The “start” and “select” buttons have been replaced with new ones: “options” and “share.” While “options” is likely a new name for “start,” the “share” button will be the way to access all of the new social features of the PS4. Finally, borrowing from Microsoft’s Kinect, the system will come with a bar (The PS4 Eye) to be placed on top of the television. The Eye enables motion control, voice recognition and compatibility with existing PlayStation controllers.

 

The Games

It was surprising to see so many games so early, but they didn’t disappoint. The first announcement was “Knack,” a game about a little magic robot who can absorb debris from the world to grow into a massive wrecking machine. Sony checked off some necessary bullet points with a new “Killzone” shooter, a racing game called “DriveClub,” from the makers of “MotorStorm,” and a new “Infamous” game. Jonathan Blow announced that his new puzzle-exploration game, “Witness,” will come first to the PS4. Capcom announced a new dungeon-crawler called “Deep Down,” and Square Enix announced a new “Final Fantasy.” At last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, Ubisoft introduced “Watch Dogs.” The company showed off a new demo, confirming it will be coming to the PS4. “Halo” creator Bungie showed a bit of “Destiny,” its new massive social shooter, and Blizzard announced versions of “Diablo III” for both the PS3 and PS4.

 

The Unknown

After all of this, we still haven’t seen the actual system or the price of it. With the new controller and camera bar presumably included on top of the high-tech innards, it’s easy to imagine the price climbing pretty high. But hopefully, Sony learned their lesson from the $600 PS3. I’d predict at least two different versions, based on hard drive space, with one of them being priced around $400. We’ll learn more at E3, by which point we’ll also know about Microsoft’s plans. Finally, the next generation is upon us.

Published on February 24, 2013 at 11:47 pm

Contact Isaac: ikdavis@syr.edu