GDC 13: Sony reveals new PS4 details

During a hugely popular PlayStation 4 GDC session today, Sony offered several new details of the platform’s power, peripherals and developer tools.

SCEA’s Chris Norton confirmed that that the PS4’s 8GB of GDDR5 RAM trumps the DDR3 memory typical of high-end gaming PCs; a fact speculated upon by many in the industry since the February launch.

Norton insisted the system architechture means that, as Sony has alluded to many times, the console will be easier to develop for than was the case with the PS3.

Sony also used the session to reveal that the PS4 developer tools will run on Windows 7 64-bit, while tools specifically made for the platform such as the Playstation Shader language will be integrated with both the 2012 and 2010 versions of the Microsoft IDE Visual Studio.

Norton also detailed more nuances of the Dualshock 4 controller, such as tighter thumbsticks and a smaller deadzone than seen previously, and the fact that as multiple controllers are connected to the console they will emit different colours, trackable by the PlayStation Eye.

It was additionally revealed that the Share button will save gameplay data to a dedicated chip within the PS4. And the DualShock 4’s distinct touchpad also offers dual touch, and will double as a button.

Meanwhile, it was stated that the PS4’s Blu-Ray drive is up to three times faster than its predecessor.

Finally, the PS4’s hardware threads will offer a 2mb L2 cache for each of the console’s four-hour groups.

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GDC 2013 – Live! Breaking news and up-to-the-minute developments: HERE

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