For the last 18 years, Sony has pioneered for the future of gaming, starting with the original PlayStation and continuing through the fourth version of the famed Sony console, the PS4. This is it ladies and gentlemen: the next generation of gaming has arrived and it’s coming out swinging.
At first glance you notice how small it is. All those teasing promises that Sony has been dangling since February with their “see the future” campaign hold up. Open the box and you are presented with the shiny, albeit fingerprint-attracting console, along with the AC adapter, controller and HDMI cable.
The console elicits memories of Sony’s past. The structure and design is smooth and elegant. Measuring a mere 12.01 x 10.8 x 2.09 inches, it’s a lot more compact than its predecessors and considerably lighter, weighing in at 6 pounds. Located in the front of the console, the power button and disc eject are so sleek they blend into the structure, and are easily mistaken for part of the design. I tested people to see if they could turn on the console without telling them where the power was; it took most folks five to 10 minutes. It is also quieter when the system boots up. You can still hear it, but gone are the days of having to turn up the TV to drown out its noise.
The console was cleverly designed to hide certain features that have become the norm in consoles. The charging block is built into the system itself, so no more bulky AC adapters, and the vents are hidden so well you can barely see them. The system also features an HDMI out, digital out, ethernet and a camera port built right into the back.
As sleek as the outside is, the true beauty is on the inside. To get technical, the PS4 houses an Octa-core x86 AMD Jaguar CPU, and Raedon GPU, which can bust out a whopping 1.84 teraflops of power. As if that was not enough, Sony also fit in a 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. For those who do not understand tech speak, let me put it this way: this thing is so fast and powerful, you won’t have to worry about replacing it for a while – it’s 10 times more powerful than the PS3.
The greatest consoles achieve balance. In order to attain this, the controller’s yin must match the consoles yang. There are a lot of gripes about the PS3’s Dualshock 3 controller, and it seems Sony took them all to heart. The Dualshock 4 is easily the best controller the company has ever made. It’s the standard setup, but it’s much improved, with smoother edges and a better placement of the joysticks all to help you.
One of the new additions to the controller is the touchpad built into the front, which works extremely well. The game I tested it on, “Killzone,” used it intuitively and it responded perfectly to inputs. It will be exciting to see what other companies will do with this device. The controller also has a new share button that when pressed will automatically start capturing your gameplay so you can upload it for the world to see. It also comes with a speaker within it for added effect.
After the mandatory initial set up, it starts you off at the new PS4 desktop, which is another huge improvement over the PS3 XMB. It is smooth and easy to navigate. Putting a game into the system will start the downloading process, as games will require an install before being able to play them. This might seem like an inconvenience but you can start to play the game while it finishes downloading, no more having to wait until it hits 100 percent.
Another great feature that was not as hyped by Sony as it should have been was the remote play with a PlayStation Vita. It is amazing to be able to not only use the Vita to play the game, but also transfer it from the PS4 to the Vita to continue playing, kind of like the Wii U system but to greater effect.
The last component of a great console is of course, the video games. At the time of launch only a handful of games are available and only a few are really worth the purchase. “Killzone” was one of the standouts, as it is the only game so far made exclusively for the system. It looks beautiful and almost surreal. Even if you are not a basketball fan, check out “NBA 2k14,” it looks so real in passing that it actually feels like an actual live game.
In short, this is what we as gamers have been waiting for: the start of a new generation. The PS4 is the flagship of next-gen gaming. Everything about it screams ingenuity and its innovations are accessible to the gamers of the world without being dumbed down for the non-gamers. Go out and get one if you can, as the next year will see a slew of huge triple-A titles hitting the shelves. Did someone say “Uncharted 4”? As we say good-bye to the former generation of great systems, it is comforting to know that the next generation is in brilliant form.