After months of rumours Sony have finally revealed the PS4 at a conference in New York. The event was also streamed live across the web but due to demand many viewers had to put up with very poor quality streams.
Sony didn’t show off the design of the new console but did confirm the DualShock 4 gamepad which features improved rumble, touchpad, share button and lightbar for Move support.
A big deal was made out of the new social button with plenty of video showing developers praising it. The button allows you to scan through your recent gameplay, tag it and then return to the game while the video is uploaded. Images and video can be shared via social networks.
 Killzone Shadow Fall
Spectating is also supported allowing gamers to broadcast their gameplay in real-time to friends. Friends can comment on the stream as well as helping the player out.
Remote Play was shown off by streaming PS4 gameplay to PS Vita and there will also be second screen functionality for tablets and smartphones. Cloud gaming via Gaikai technology is also going to be big on PS4 allowing instant play of downloadable games.
During play gamers will be able to suspend their game much like you can already do on the PS Vita. It also looks like updates will be a thing of the past as games will allow background updating. The PS4 will also try to predict what you will want to download and have it ready for you in advance.
 Knack
A few games were shown at the event including new titles Knack, Killzone Shadow Fall, inFamous: Second Son, Driveclub and Capcom’s Deep Down. Epic Games showed off a new realtime version of their Unreal Engine 4 Elemental demo and Square Enix showed their Agni’s Philosophy demo again. Other games mentioned included a new Final Fantasy, Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs and Bungie’s Destiny.
The PS4 is using a very PC-like architecture making it far more developer friendly than the PS3. The currently announced specs for the console are:
Main Processor
Single-chip custom processor
CPU : x86-64 AMD Jaguar, 8 cores
GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon based
graphics engine
Memory
GDDR5 8GB
Hard Disk Drive
Built-in
Optical Drive
(read only)
BD 6xCAV
DVD 8xCAV
I/O
Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0) AUX
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)
IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)
AV output
HDMI
Analog-AV out
Digital Output (optical)
*Specifications are subject to change without notice.
The PS4 release date wasn’t announced but rollout of the console looks set to begin late 2013.
EF will be bringing you more information on the PS4 as it is announced.
