Give us a second
Not everything in gaming is original.
Nintendo must have known when it produced the Wii U and the tablet controller
that its rivals would seek to compete head on with that. It happens all the
time Nintendo’s Wii Remote was taped by PlayStation Move. Microsoft went even
further with controller-less Kinect play (itself not that far removed from
Sony’s EyeToy).
Already we’ve seen Microsoft making use of
smartphones and tablets to introduce a second screen to Xbox 360 play, so it
follows that PS4 integrates second screens including smartphones and tablets
and, best of all, the PlayStation Vita. You will be able to hook this handheld
console to the PS4 and get more out of it, and that’s got to be better than
having it languishing in your drawer, right?
PlayStation
App will enable smartphones and tablets to become second screens
As with the screen that comes with the
Nintendo Wii U, the second screen is likely to be used for maps and extra
information relating to the game. Another key features enabled by the second
screens is something called Remote Play. When using the PS Vita, gamers will be
able to seamlessly pull PS4 titles from their living room TVs and play them on
PS Vita’s 5” display. A new application from SCE called PlayStation App will
enable smartphones and tablets to become second screens, and it will also be
possible to purchase PS4 games while away from home and download them directly
to the console at home. Players will also be able to remotely watch other
gamers playing on their devices.
Cloud thinking
You may remember that last year, Sony made
a significant purchase. It snapped up Northern Irishman David Perry’s Gaikai
cloud gaming service, the major rival to OnLive. This service is going to come
to the fore with the new PlayStation. Sony is combining PlayStation Network
with Gaikai so that when a gamer sees a title of interest in the PlayStation
Store, they can immediately start playing a portion of the actual game. This
won’t be a stripped-down version of the game but the whole lot, and it will appear
in an instant.
There’s talk that this will be used to
allow gamers to play older games from the sizeable PlayStation back catalogue,
but new games will also become available in this way. The actual PS4 will not
be backwards compatible with PS3 games (not those produced before that) and
neither will old PSN games we playable on PS4 without developers giving them a
tweak (so get Journey downloaded and played now before you upgrade), so
streaming will become a key part of the PlayStation experience, we reckon.
The
long-term goal of the PS4 is to reduce download times of digital titles to zero
As part of that experience, the menu screen
of the PS3 is being overhauled for a new look. Players will be able to look
over game-related information shared by friends, view friend’s gameplay with
ease, or obtain information of recommended content, including games, TV shows
and movies. The long-term goal of the PS4 is to reduce download times of
digital titles to zero: if the system knows enough about a player to predict
the next game they will purchase, then that game can be loaded and ready to go
before then even click the ‘buy’ button. The PS4 will further enrich users’
entertainment experiences, by meeting their potential needs. It sounds scary
and yet exciting too.
Indeed, the PS4 will radically reduce the
lag time between players and their content. The Ps4 features a suspend mode,
which keeps the system in a low power state while preserving the game session.
When a gamer leaves the room and the system goes to sleep, a tap of the power
button gets them back playing the game at the exact point where they left off.
Users can also boot a variety of applications including a web browser when
playing a game on the PS4.
Indeed,
the PS4 will radically reduce the lag time between players and their content.
PS4 also enables games to be downloaded or
updated in the background or even in stand-by mode. The system takes it one
step further by making digital titles playable as they’re being downloaded.
When a player purchases a game, the Ps4 downloads just a fraction of the data,
so gamers can start playing immediately, and the rest is downloaded in the
background during actual gameplay.
All of which makes the PS4 an exciting
console, even if we don’t know what it looks like or how much it will cost. We
know if will be due out later this year, but we don’t know if that will be in
Europe or, more specifically, the UK. We suspect it won’t be and that we’ll see
it next year instead as is usual with releases of this kind.
But it is the next gen. and it is here at
last. Gaming has needed this kind of shot in the arm for a year or so now and
the extra power that the console will bring will ensure games that are more
advanced than ever before both in their scope and graphical prowess. We also
like the fact Sony didn’t spill all immediately. It whets our appetite and
leaves us hungry for more. It also suggests Sony isn’t 100% sure that it has
everything in place, and that means it could react to some of the critics;
suggestions. We’re sure to have some fun.
