[PS4] - Final Fantasy Tech Demo

[Sephiroth]

PS4 -The Specs

Here is what we know about the hardware specifications:

Single-chip custom processor, with eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU cores and 1.84 TFLOPS next-gen AMD Radeon based graphics engine
8GB GDDR5 memory
Built-in hard drive
6x Blu-Ray and 8x DVD drive
USB 3.0 and auxiliary ports
Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1
HDMI, analog AV-out, and optical S/PDIF audio output
DualShock 4 controller, with two-point capacitive touchpad, three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer, vibration, light bar with three color LEDs, mono speaker, micro USB port, stereo headset port, extension port, 1000mAh battery
PlayStation 4 Eye camera, with two 1280 x 800 cameras, f/2.0 fixed focus lenses, 85-degree field of view, 30cm minimum focusing distance, four-channel microphone array

What does this mean?

The Good

Sony is dropping back to x86 technology. Forget about “cell processors” and “emotion chips”. All that crap is out the door. This is a high end PC, with a PS4 stamp on it. This is FANTASTIC for developers; since the x86 “PC” architecture is easy to work with. It will allow easy porting to and from the PC platform. Sony is playing nice with others – and that is a good thing.

The Bad

Developers will have an opportunity to “back port” older games to the PS4 – a practice which has earned jeers at Nintendo with the Wii U. Of course, since it isn’t Nintendo – the bashing probably won’t extend to Sony over 1+ year old games coming to a brand new next-gen console – but time will tell. Porting is a double edged sword – we’ll see how it works out for Sony.

The Fugly

The PC architecture made the Xbox one of the most hackable consoles of all time. Sony has been able to mask security through proprietary hardware and software; but this time? An x86 architecture could lead to “hacked PS4s” – and this time, it won’t be to play free games (okay, not JUST to play free games) – it will be to make into a powerful PC.

The Controller

Sony brings us a new-yet-familiar controller; DualShock 4 controller, with two-point capacitive touchpad, three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer, vibration, light bar with three color LEDs, mono speaker, micro USB port, stereo headset port, extension port, 1000mAh battery

The Good

Everything is in there – including the kitchen sink. The touch pad (while stillborn on the Vita) will open a few doors, the “Move” built-in will reduce controller overhead and they chose to go with standard ports for headset and USB.

They managed to keep the DualShock look and feel (very smart on their part) considering how much new tech is in there – making it more acceptable and accessible by existing players.

The Bad

The touch pad size will make it largely impractical for almost everything; inventory control, drag and select for RTS games … I see it as being about half the size of a standard laptop track pad area – and about 1/4 as useful. The Vita’s use of a track pad didn’t exactly set the world on fire – I suspect developers will have a hard time making this a practical feature.

The three color LEDs are probably necessary for Move functionality; the question is – will they have to be on ALL the time? That would kinda suck. Showing player feedback (health is low, etc) has been mentioned – yet gamers complain about having to look down at the Wii U’s gamepad for information – so that might be a lost cause. Again, what will developers do with them?

I wonder how much a second controller is going to cost? If the current DualShock is $50, I would have to assume $75 to $100 for a second PS4 controller. That’s a tough purchase.

The Fugly

Sony seems desperate. They don’t want to pick a tech to back – so they just put them all in there … and they made sure they cloned as much of everyone else’s tech as they could too. Sony loves to borrow after the fact (we’ve seen it before) and this franken-troller is just that.

That battery is going to take a beating – I wonder just how long that 1000mAh will last; more importantly, how heavy is the controller and how much heat will that battery give off?

[CloudStrife7x]

cool video shared Seph and good info shared as well bro :D

[thegutta]

Great share Seph final fantasy is gonna kick ass on playstation 4 :D

[Emerald Lance]

Nice share. It's a shame that this is only a tech demo. I don't know why developers make so many great ideas and choose to only flesh them out as five minute videos instead of full-length games. This would make a great game!

[Serious_M]

very nice demo share seph , can,t wait for this game