With every passing day more and more rumors are being generated by the ever-productive online rumor mill with regards to the release of Sony’s PS4. The PS4 is the working name given to the PS3 sequel expected to hit shelves within the next 12-18 months. There has been no official word on the console from developers Sony yet, but this of course hasn’t stopped wild speculation that development will begin soon which is founded on several factors:
– Consoles tend to last for around six years before a sequel is released which is backed up by the gaps between PS1, PS2 and PS3.
– Nintendo is already beginning to leak information regarding its Wii sequel currently codenamed ‘Project Cafe’.
– PC graphics are beginning to leave console graphics behind, and games like the Uncharted series seem to have pushed the PS3 as far as it can go in terms of graphics capability and physics.
This all suggests we might see a PS4 on the market some time soon and rumors and speculation seem to support this theory.
So what can we expect from a PS4 once it arrives? Well first of all we should expect a giant jump forward in power and this has been noted in all previous examples of games consoles with the general trend being for consoles to roughly double in terms of their performance. This would result in photo-realistic graphics and that in turn would continue the trend towards more cinematic gameplay for the games. It is fair to anticipate that this graphical leap will be most pronounced for the PS4 as PlayStation has always aimed at the ‘core gamer’ market – the market of gamers who like realism and shoot ’em ups and who are generally an older male demographic. This is in stark opposition to, for instance, Nintendo, who tend to instead aim their products at a younger family market and both genders. This also means we can expect fewer ‘gimmicks’ when it comes to Sony. True to form on the other hand the Project Cafe has already been revealed to feature a controller with its own monitor. That said, it will be interesting to see whether the success of the Wii, Kinect and Move lead to any developments in controller technology – something like a motion sensor in the controller for instance.
Sony have also shown an interest lately into moving into the arena of downloadable content – as proven by the PS Go which featured entirely downloadable games. Something similar for a new home PlayStation device wouldn’t be out of the question then especially with the success of games on the PlayStation Network online service.
There are also many new technologies being constantly developed that could be implemented for a future PlayStation. For instance controllers that pick up brainwaves have always been shown to be possible and more and more devices and companies are now using the concept of a ‘cloud’ for storing information remotely. Perhaps we’ll see these in the next console or perhaps that won’t be a reality until the first 9th generation console… Yugioh trading cards