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The PS4 Pro, as explained by the man who designed it
Sony really wants to clarify a few things about the PlayStation 4 Pro: First, the Pro doesn't signal the end of video game console generations, even though its specs and launch window fit a pattern that resembles PC or smartphone upgrade cycles more than traditional console releases. Second, the Pro is valuable even if you don't have a 4K TV. Third, though most games on the Pro won't actually be rendered in true 4K, they're still much improved over the standard PS4. Sony probably feels the need to clarify these points because after it revealed the PS4 Pro in September, there was some confusion over the capabilities and identity of the new console. It was pitched as a mid-generation upgrade that would usher in an era of 4K gaming, but after the scripted presentation, it became obvious that 4K was still out of reach for most developers. At the launch event, we found just one game on the demo floor that actually ran in 4K (that would be Elder Scrolls Online) while others took advantage of the Pro's upgraded guts in other ways. Impressive ways, but not 4K. After the reveal, it was unclear who the PS4 Pro was built for and what it signaled for the future of gaming consoles. It joined Microsoft's Project Scorpio in blurring the generational divide, and with all of this talk about 4K, its benefits for HDTV owners were uncertain. That's when Mark Cerny stepped in.
The After Math: Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro event
For an hourlong media event, Sony packed a ton of new info into 60 minutes. Release date and prices for both the PlayStation 4 Slim and PS4 Pro, tons of HDR footage from upcoming games and even a few bits about how the PS4 Pro would better handle PlayStation VR games. That's on top of perhaps the biggest announcement of the keynote: All 40 million + PS4s will get an update that adds HDR video capability. And that's just the beginning.
These guys created the PlayStation 4 and here's how they did it (video)
Earlier this month we were in the audience to see two gaming legends talk at length about the history of PlayStation, but if you want to watch PlayStation's head of Worldwide Studios and the PS4's lead designer have a lengthy chat for yourself, a video of the conversation is now available. Over the course of roughly 90 minutes, Shuhei Yoshida and Mark Cerney cover everything from the former getting banned from Nintendo's Miiverse (twice), how the PS Move controller signaled a new era of design teamwork at Sony and what it was like working under SCEA's legendarily hard-nosed chief, Ken Kutaragi. This type of insight typically isn't seen much outside of the annual Game Developer's Conference, so fire up the Chromecast, pour a frosty beverage and enjoy.
An oral history of the last 20 years of gaming, as told by PlayStation's Shuhei Yoshida
The three weeks out of every month that Shuhei Yoshida's in Japan, he has the same routine every day. He wakes up, opens a tablet, and gets back to work on PlayStation consumer feedback via his favorite interaction tool: Twitter. The man who heads Sony's PlayStation group is incredibly, perhaps detrimentally, accessible on social media. It's not his job, but a role he's taken on. "It's my personal time, but since lots of people tweet to me, I'm doing this almost official customer service," he says. After 20-plus years working on PlayStation, Yoshida's beyond overqualified for customer service. He's been with Sony's PlayStation arm from its creation, and helped shepherd franchises from idea to mainstream norms: Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted. The list goes on. Yoshida spoke with PlayStation 4 lead architect (and other game industry legend) Mark Cerny last evening in California, where he detailed his storied history in the game industry.
How PlayStation Move shaped the PS4
The PlayStation Move has been called a lot of bad names. It's the PlayStation peripheral that's least used by game devs, least purchased by console owners, and least spoken of by Sony itself. Some of that sentiment's been turning lately, ever since Sony showed off Project Morpheus a few weeks ago and demonstrated what an impact something like Move has on virtual reality immersion (the controller works for both PS3 and PS4). And the guy who heads up PlayStation's worldwide game studios, Shuhei " Shu" Yoshida, says Move is responsible for far more than it's given credit. "This project was one of the very first hardware projects formed with three groups: the software engineering team at SCEA, the hardware engineers at SCEI in Japan, and the Worldwide Studios team making games using the motion controller," Yoshida told attendees of a presentation tonight at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. He and PlayStation 4 lead architect Mark Cerny explained that this trifecta was the first in a string of major collaborations: PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, and now Project Morpheus.
Sony's Mark Cerny: Game developers have been calling for the PS4 since 2008 (video)
According to the PlayStation 4's Lead Architect Mark Cerny, his team's biggest breakthrough wasn't in raw hardware power; it was something much more basic: conversation. At this week's New York City review event for the next-generation game console, Cerny detailed the six-year journey to creating the PS4, and the surprisingly low-tech revelation that could be the biggest difference between the new system and the PlayStation 3, which was notoriously difficult to program for. "It looks so obvious in retrospect. Our big breakthrough, what is it? We talked to some people who made games about what sort of hardware they'd like to make their games on," he said. "But that isn't the way that hardware was developed!"
PlayStation through the years: Mark Cerny on the PS4's roots and the brand's evolution (video)
The genesis story: the long-lead up to every console's launch usually leaves one in its wake. Typically, we get some sanitized version, appropriately molded by corporate PR and fed to the public with the crust cut off. But when you're Mark Cerny, lead PlayStation 4 architect, and you've literally grown up with the games industry and the PlayStation brand itself, the tale you get to tell tends to be more truthful, mesmerizing, and chock full of the hard knocks that make success stories so great. And that's just what Cerny delivered at Gamelab in Barcelona this week, recounting the whirlwind career that led him to have the heaviest hand in shaping Sony's next-gen platform. Not familiar with the man's esteemed background? Then sample this bit of historical trivia: Cerny was the youngest Atari employee at age 17 (!). How's that for inspiring? Oh, and what's more, Cerny even fesses up to the egotistical attitude that flattened Sony's PlayStation 3 launch (spoiler alert: it has to do with crushing third-party devs). There's much, much more insider-y goodness packed into the 45 minute-plus video after the break. Go on, now. Watch it. You'll be better for it, we promise.
PlayStation 4 lead looked at x86 chips in 2007, wants polished games on day one
Many game developers will tell you that the PlayStation 3's Cell processor was a real bear to support. What they can't tell you: the PlayStation 4's lead architect, Mark Cerny, was already thinking of a solution as far back as 2007. He just revealed to Gamasutra that he'd been researching x86-based processors for the PS4 merely a year after the PS3 launch, knowing that there were "some issues" with realizing the Cell's potential. The new console's unified memory and eight-core CPU were the ultimate results of Cerny's talks with game creators shortly after he took the reins in 2008. We've already seen the shift in attitudes through a very developer-centric PlayStation Meeting, but Cerny wants to underscore just how different the PS4's holiday launch should be versus what we remember from 2006 -- even the first wave of PS4 games should benefit from a healthy toolset, he says. We'll know his long-term planning paid off if the initial PS4 library shows the level of refinement that took years to manifest on the PS3.
Ustream on PlayStation 4: discovery, one-click sharing and being 'a modern day cable provider'
"We've partnered with some of the biggest and most influential social networks in the world, including Facebook and Ustream, to bring gamers' friends into games like never before," former Gaikai CEO David Perry told attendees of Sony's PlayStation 4 event last week. It was the only mention Ustream got during the show, despite the video streaming service playing a critical role in Sony's next video game console. In-tandem with the PlayStation 4's new DualShock 4 controller and its "Share" button, users will be able to quickly upload saved gameplay video clips or directly stream their game out to the internet. The console's lead system architect, Mark Cerny, expanded on the importance of the Share button and its implications to the PlayStation 4 during last week's presentation. "Social play is so important to PlayStation 4 that we've added in hardware to support it, in the form of dedicated, always-on video compression and decompression systems," he said. We saw a bit of the game sharing / streaming interface during Sony's presentation, but were left wondering about specifics: how will discovery work? and what of other, non-gaming Ustream content? Thankfully, Ustream CEO Brad Hunstable was able to offer up most of our answers in a recent interview. "Our goal is to allow discovery in a very clean user experience, both in discovery on the console itself and on various platforms that the content'll be available on (like Ustream, Twitter, and Facebook)," Hunstable said. He wouldn't speak to the specifics of how that discovery will work, nor would he say if you'll be able to sign-in simply using your PlayStation Network ID or if you'll have to sign up for a separate Ustream account, but he stressed that the decisions being made are, "based on what's easiest and best for the gamer." That same rubric is (thankfully) being applied to functionality. "The goal is to make sure it's very easy -- one click of a button, super simple -- and most importantly make sure it looks really, really good. And is viewable wherever people want to watch it from," Hunstable said.
Sony unveils its next game console, the PlayStation 4, arriving in holiday 2013
Sony tonight announced its much-rumored next video game console, the PlayStation 4. Sony Computer Entertainment prez and CEO Andrew House unveiled the console with little more than a logo and a handful of concepts, though he did say it's coming in holiday 2013. As far as specs, the PS4 has an 8-core 64-bit x86 "Jaguar" CPU from AMD and a Radeon GPU with 18 "compute units" pushing 1.84 TFLOPS of horsepower. It features a 6X Blu-ray drive, 802.11n WiFi, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI, optical out, analog AV out, and an unknown amount of internal storage. Lead system architect Mark Cerny -- legendary game dev and, most importantly, creator of Marble Madness -- said that development of the PS4 started five years ago, and since then, he's been exploring how to evolve "the PlayStation ecosystem." Speaking to the limitations of the previous PlayStation console, Cerny said he's been aiming to make sure "nothing gets between the platform and the game." An image of an old-timey hunter shooting Space Invaders ships in the sky (in reality) was used as an example -- later, a more concrete example was given in the PS4's multitasking ability, as well as its ease of use. More on that in a moment. "We were able to create in PlayStation 4 a system by game creators, for game creators," Cerny said. Double Fine president Tim Schafer and Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos were just two of several game devs that spoke to Sony reaching out and asking for input. He next unveiled the DualShock 4, which looks an awful lot like the leaks we saw recently -- it features a new touchpad, a new light bar, a Share button, a mono speaker, and what looks like rubberized grips (in addition to the standard dual analog sticks, d-pad, triggers, shoulder buttons, and four face buttons). Internally, it's still got rumble functionality and a built-in, non-removable lithium ion battery. In so many words, the DualShock 4 looks an awful lot like a DualShock 3 with some new bells and whistles.
