In late 2013 the world was
treated to the release of the next generation in gaming consoles. The two main
contenders of the console wars were, of course, Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s
Xbox One. Sony’s PlayStation 4 has many new and advanced
characteristics, as well as being packed to the brim with cutting-edge
technology. The PlayStation 4 was also plagued with some initial problems,
however, as we will discover.
First of all, let’s start with
the design of the PlayStation 4. It is a parallelogram shape, with the front
end of it being angled upwards and the back end of it being angled downwards.
Sony officials state that there were specific reasons for this design. They say
the front end is angled upwards so that the power and eject buttons are easier
for the user to press, although they are somewhat difficult to find when first
using the system. The back of the system slopes downwards to hide the cables
plugged into the back better, in order to make your entertainment cabinet look
less cluttered.
The controller that accompanies
the PlayStation 4 is the DualShock 4, which has some rather sophisticated
features including a touchpad interface and an inbuilt speaker. The interface
on the PS4’s controller is a capacitive touchpad, meaning that it can support
two touches at one, and can therefore be used as a form of controller for
gaming as seen in War Thunder.
The DualShock 4 also has a
share button that allows you to add screenshots and gameplay to your Facebook feed
as well as Twitch and Ustream. Sony’s whole system is built with the idea of
sharing and streaming at its core, so it’s no surprise that they decided to
include a button for it on the controller. The DualShock 4’s interface has many
uses, one of which is to edit and trim the 15 minutes of gameplay that your PS4
can record when you press the share button.
The DualShock 4 also features
an LED Light Bar, not unlike the LED ball on the PlayStation Move. It sits
along the top of the controller, and changes colour for various different
gaming scenarios like a player or damage indicator, but it also offers
Move-like controls. The DualShock 4 also has a built-in speaker that lets you
hear additional sounds when gaming, although there’s also a headphone jack
which lets you hear these additional sounds in greater detail as well as your
friends’ voices during chats. For Metal
Gear Solid fans
like myself who are eagerly anticipating Ground
Zero, it’s easy to imagine taking incoming Codec calls (or radio
transmissions) by holding the controller to your face like Big Boss’s radio.
The Start and Select buttons
from all of the DualShock 4’s predecessors have been dropped in favour of a
single Options button that covers all aspects of the previous two buttons.
Other than this, the buttons of the DualShock 4 have the same layout as the
DualShock 3. The buttons of the controller have been reshaped and remodelled, however,
most notably the L2 and R2 buttons and the dual analogue sticks. This redesign
was carried out on the wishes of the systems developers, as well as the vocal
gaming community.
The DualShock 4 controller also
has a new way of making multitasking easier. When using the controller, if you
double-tap the PlayStation button then you’ll swap between your last two used
applications. So if you’re gaming, then pause to take a look at which of your
friends are online, it’s a simple switch back to where you were – no saving
required!
The PS4 itself is quite a
remarkable piece of technology. Sony has ditched Cell, the old processor from
the PS3 in favour of a single-chip custom processor, an x86-64 AMD ‘Jaguar’
that has eight cores. There is a second processing chip in the system that is
dedicated to the management of uploads and downloads.
The GPU is an AMD Radeon-based
graphics engine that is capable of making 1.84 trillion calculations per second! The PS4 also
packs an improbable 8GB of GDDR5 memory. To give you an idea of how advanced
that is, come 2016 it will still be cutting edge technology.
The system is designed to
always stay in stand-by mode rather than turning off, and can even do a few
things whilst in stand-by. The PS4 has put a stop to the frustrating process of
having to download a large software update by updating when it is in stand-by
mode. This means no more unnecessary waiting when all you want to do is play. And it’s able to charge the DualShock 4
controller when it’s in stand-by mode too. Nice.
There is also a new suspend
mode which lets the user switch off the console, and then store the current
game’s in-state memory. When the user later returns to the PS4 and engages the
power, the game instantly carries on where last they left off, thus erasing the
process of having to boot the system and load the game.
The PS4 also has some features
exclusive to it that the Xbox One doesn’t. One such thing is that Sony is notgoing to outlaw pre-owned
games on the PS4. Microsoft caused uproar within the gaming community when it
was revealed that all second hand games would need to have a second online code
bought with them on top of the second-hand game’s retail price. But it has been
confirmed that this is in fact not the case with the PS4.
You can also watch Netflix and other similar streaming services
without having a PlayStation Plus subscription. Although this is the same as it
was with the PlayStation 3, the Xbox One needs Xbox Live Gold to use Netflix
and other media services. As well, the PS4 will not always require an online
connection as the Xbox One will (sort of).
Comments
Post a Comment