The Technology
Following a blurb over the technical specifications of the new console, which will feature, amongst other things, an X86 CPU, an enhanced PC GPU and 8GB of unified memory, emphasis was quickly shifted to the new system's controller, with rumours from the past few weeks about a Dualshock-shaped peripheral with a touch-pad in the middle of it proving to be correct. Rumble features remain, though changes to the trigger buttons and the addition of touch navigation, a headphone jack and a 3D tracking bar mean that the familiar controller that has remained almost unchanged since 1995 has undergone a complete overhaul. The most talked about new controller feature was the 'Share' button, which allows players to take screenshots and stream videos of their games in real time. This ties into a new social network that Sony are introducing alongside the console, which will allow players to share their achievements and gameplay footage with the world, whilst also being able to spectate the games of others live. Such a feature will also allow developers to see first-hand how players experience their creations, allowing them to research the gameplay preferences of their customers and make improvements as necessary. Said social network will also be able via smartphone and tablet, both of which will connect to the new system. More interestingly, however, the remote play capabilities of the Playstation Vita will allow players to switch control of their PS4 games to their handheld, enabling mobile play, though it remains to be seen how extensive this feature will be. Loading times will apparently become a thing of the past, as the preservation of gamestates within the system's RAM will allow players to instantly save and load their games, whilst multimedia features will continue to be an important part of the console, as relationships with services such as Netflix are set to continue into the next generation. Finally, following Sony purchases of the cloud-based gaming service Gaikai last year, there was much pre-conference speculation about the possibility of the PS4 having the technology to stream games directly to consumers, particularly after the registration of several trademarks for a 'Playstation Cloud' service. It was confirmed in the conference that work was underway to use this technology to offer backwards compatibility to the new console, allowing on-demand access to a library of PS1, PS2 and PS3 games, though many may criticise having to pay to play games they have already purchased once before. More surprisingly, however, it was announced that the technology would be utilised on the Playstation Store to allow players to instantly sample the full version of a game, with the capability to download it in the background as they play, though the function to download things whilst the system is powered down will also be an option. This would seem to spell the death of demos, though it raises questions about what will happen if a player progresses through a game faster than their system can download it in its entirety.