PlayStation 4 to go into production in late 2011

[Kumagoro]

http://fudzilla.com/home/item/23283-...n-in-late-2011

According to Digitimes, Taiwanese component makers are gearing to start PlayStation 4 production by the end of the year.

The new PS4 is expected to feature motion controllers and a host of new features, but the exact spec is still in the realm of speculation.

Sony apparently plans to ship about 20 million units in 2012.

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If this is indeed a new Playstation and not just a PS3 even slimmer, I am wondering if it is actually going to be more of a PS3.1 rather than really a PS4. Seeing as there was a news article a month or two back where Sony said at their AGM or whatever that the PS4 will not be a completely new system like PS1 to PS2 to PS3.

Could it be just an upgraded PS3 with a more powerful cell CPU and newer possibly directX11 level GPU, and as such maintain proper backwards compatibility. Then 5 years down the line there will be another big upgrade and we will have the PS5 or PS3.2 and then after another 5 or so years the PS3.3 etc.

[Funkstar]

Could it be just an upgraded PS3 with a more powerful cell CPU and newer possibly directX11 level GPU, and as such maintain proper backwards compatibility. Then 5 years down the line there will be another big upgrade and we will have the PS5 or PS3.2 and then after another 5 or so years the PS3.3 etc.

Doesn't sound like a bad plan actually. As consoles are really just general purpose systems not, there is no reason they couldn't do something like this. A spec bump and perhaps a feature bump on some things. The PS3 as it stands is a very capable system, obviously I'm not a platform architect, but I can't imagine what else you would need other than more CPU power, memory and graphics power to advance it, everything else is just software on the top.

[DanceswithUnix]

Perhaps they can do a simple clock speed bump on the cell cpu, but cell is basically dead now so I don't see any major revamp happening.

More graphics performance would be good, the 7800gt equivalent graphics looks, frankly, a bit pants these days. Wonder if their API is good enough that they could substitute a modern Fermi based chip in there.

ofc they could always SLI a pair of their old graphics chips

[Jay]

I will never buy another Sony product, it could be the best console ever made (taking over from the SNES! ) and I would still not buy it.

[MadduckUK]

yup, i certainly wont be buying one

until it gets a Gran Turismo

[watercooled]

I'm open minded about the PS4. I don't think I'm likely I'd buy one as I tend to prefer PC gaming and a lot of my friends are moving to it too but any console I did buy would probably be for online play with friends. What that is, is anyone's guess but probably the next Xbox going by their comments. I think the next Wii should be interesting and should be a world away from the current consoles in terms of performance. But a console without such a heavy focus on all this extra dimension crap (3D/motion controllers/etc) would be nice.

As for the upgrade, it depends what you consider an upgrade or a complete new console. The Cell is already at 3.2GHz, a nightmare to program for and not overly useful for game code. Adding more Cells really wouldn't go down with developers and wouldn't make much of a difference to performance IMO. And the GPU was very outdated even at release - consoles need to last 5-10 years and the same platform isn't really going to last another 10 years (imagine PS2 now - I can see plenty of people moving to the competition). Memory, you have 512MB total and that wasn't a lot at the time. Also the security system has been defeated so would need to be changed. After upgrading all of that you might as well call it a new console. I for one really don't think an incremental upgrade is an option. The PS3 is far from this supercomputer it's made out to be.

I seriously hope they implement some sort of power-saving features on the new chips considering how much time lots of people spend on the 'desktop' or watching films now. Using >150W at idle is just ridiculous for a console.

[HSK]

yup, i certainly wont be buying one

until it gets a Gran Turismo

GT6 for PS4 will be released 4 years after the console comes out....:-(

[pp05]

Sony support their consoles for approx 10 years. This will mean PS3 price will come down. Leap from ps2 to ps3 was huge. So the leap to PS4 may not be as big.

What made previous PS do well was the fact they doubled up as a media player. For example: PS2 had a dvd player when DVD players were new on the market. PS3 had a Blu-ray player when Blu-ray was new on the market.

[watercooled]

HVD FTW?

[shaithis]

If you have followed all the news recently and the quotes and retractions and re-quotes from sony execs, it seems that they are in a fluster atm.

My guess that this is a knee-jerk reaction to the recent hackings and CFWs. Their security has been compromised, they band-aided it the best they could but the final killing blow is imminent.

This is more of a "we need to get new security out there", rather then a proper PS4......I even wonder if it ends up as nothing more then a high-end PS3. They had "nothing in development" several weeks ago and now there are companies geared up to start production?

Hmmm.......

[MadduckUK]

GT6 for PS4 will be released 4 years after the console comes out....:-(

whenever, no real rush. will probably be a couple of forzas in the meantime.

[HSK]

I'm GT all the way :-(

[Dareos]

I'll pick one up about 3 years after release, when theres some good games, the bugs have been ironed out and Sony's network has been secured

I've looked at several consoles at release time and never bothered, substandard games, poor build quality and crappy firmware. Give it 2-3 years, all is sorted(usually)

[MadduckUK]

I'm GT all the way :-(

what happens if GT5 was made with the PS4 in mind, and as if by magic the game runs at a native 1920x1080, with 8xAA, and "menu-quality" cars during races.

And what if Polyphony release DLC's for it up until just before GT6 comes out.

ooooOOOooo

Im easy with either series really now, just miss my wheel on Forza is all.

[watercooled]

It would be magic if they got a high detail game to run at 1920x1080 + 8xAA with a decent frame rate on anything like the consoles we have now.

[DanceswithUnix]

The PS3 is far from this supercomputer it's made out to be.

Always the way though. The PS2 was supposed to be fantastic, but actually was worse than the Dreamcast that it managed to FUD out of the market.

Some of the mobile phone CPUs next year will have compute and graphics capability on par or exceeding the PS3, at which point they really need to do something.