PlayStation 4: Sony

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

VG247 has been told that Sony is aiming to release PlayStation 4 before Xbox 720 next Christmas, and that certain developers have been invited to reveal meetings in the US in May and June.

Following continued reports last week that PlayStation 4 is to be based on AMD hardware and is being planned for a 2013 release, a VG247 source has said Sony is aiming to get the machine to market ahead of Microsoft?s next generation Xbox.

The design goalposts for PS4, including specs, were in place at least two years ago, we were told. Our source said that Sony is ?confident? it will have the console at market ahead of the next generation Xbox next Christmas.

VG247

reported

this morning that developers and publishers have been told that Xbox 720 will be released for Holiday 2013.

?Sony are completely in the belief that they have the jump on Microsoft this time,? they said. ?You should be watching the timing of next year?s E3 keynotes, and who?s going to go first.?

A second source said this morning that all next-generation systems will be in place ?by 2014?.

Sony has apparently already put its favoured partners in the frame as to PlayStation 4.

?Top line publishers already know about it,? our source said. ?Developers working with publishers ? like Ubisoft, for example ? already know what?s going on. They?re already working on it.?

While ?most developers? will be fully briefed ?by the end of this year,? some have been invited to events in May and June in the US.

Another source has told us more information is going to be issued about PS4 to developers under NDA in May.

MCV

reported

earlier this year that both PS4 and Xbox 720 ?will be shown at E3 2012,? but both

Microsoft

and

Sony

have both said nothing consumer-facing about the next generation will happen at the LA event this year.

Direct to drive

In addition, a rumour is circulating that PlayStation 4 will use DirectX as opposed to a proprietary Sony API. It was

reported last week

that PlayStation 4 will not be based on PS3?s Cell processor in any way, and will instead use standard AMD hardware.

We were told today that Crytek was scaling its tech on the assumption that PS4 was going to be using a 24-core Cell processor as opposed to the eight-core unit in PS3. The studio was forced to halt development and start afresh when it was informed PlayStation 4 won?t be using Cell at all.

Indications are that PlayStation 4 will provide a development environment similar to that of the Xbox consoles and PC.

In addition VG247 has been told that elements of Vita?s launch hardware were changed to ensure that PS4 and Vita will be able to connect in a similar style to Nintendo?s Wii U and its controller ? due for release this year ? with Vita?s being used to control PS4 games with both twin sticks and touch.

Source: http://www.vg247.com...ox-720-release/

[Fish]

Direct to drive

....

On the simple basis of economics, you can see the sense in this. And if so, both next-gen consoles could technically be very similar. You could envisage a situation where nearly every game created can be multi-platform, as porting from one to the other would be relatively easy.

[Rigby]

I wish people would stop calling it the Xbox 720.

[Salutary7]

Seems they REALLY want to make sure no developer has a problem with their platform. Now that it's basically a PC, they might as well call it Playstation Vaio.

[ThunderRiver]

I wish people would stop calling it the Xbox 720.

Eh... XBox orgasm?

[The Teej]

Wow, sucks to be Crytek, haha.

It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft launch last this time around - and whether an early Wii U launch will actually put a spanner in the works for either player.

[Argi]

Isn't it really soon for a new Playstation?

[rajputwarrior]

Isn't it really soon for a new Playstation?

the cycles always cut into each other. it doesn't mean the ps3 doesn't have a lot of life in it still. ps2 games were still under heavy dev 2-3 years into the ps3 cycle.

i just hope sony doesn't rush it so much and they go through their own 3 red ring debacle (pretty sure i spelt that wrong) cause they released ish too early.

[soniqstylz]

the cycles always cut into each other. it doesn't mean the ps3 doesn't have a lot of life in it still. ps2 games were still under heavy dev 2-3 years into the ps3 cycle.

i just hope sony doesn't rush it so much and they go through their own 3 red ring debacle (pretty sure i spelt that wrong) cause they released ish too early.

hell, they released MLB 2K12 for the PS2 .

[still1]

when there was any argument about ps3 vs xbox here in Neowin I use to defend PS3... Now, I dont really care... who cares about what console are the best....

buy what works for you.. So ps4 or xbox 720... i dont care which comes out first now.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Using DirectX is a good decision. It'll likely make it easier for developers to make multi-platform titles. And using AMD hardware is another good decision. They seem to be good at making console GPUs. I really hope they decide to use a powerful GPU. That should force Microsoft to make one that's just as powerful for the next-gen Xbox.

[123456789A]

Next Xbox is called the Xbox 365.

[V23]

Next Xbox is called the Xbox 365.

It's obviously going to be called the Xbox 362 (i.e. the second 360) :)

[still1]

^ it will be called the new Xbox simple as that

[perochan]

^ it will be called Ybox.

[Vandalsquad]

Just on the amount of time more Microsoft has had I would guess the Xbox would be ready to roll out just as quickly or before the PS4 if they wanted it to. I'm surprised Sony are pushing the PS4 out the door this early when they have just started turning a profit and they are still losing billions year on year as a whole.

To bad they can't fully seperate the Playstation brand from Sony into another company and have it turn a profit on its own without the money pit of big brother.

[-T- Member]

So theoretically, it could be more compatible with the original Xbox, than 360 was?

[Joshie]

Oh look, another article with someone perpetuating the "Xbox 720" idiocy.

It's like if journalists a couple years ago took that awful "Windows Se7en" crap that was floating around seriously and published it over and over.

[soniqstylz]

^ it will be called Ybox.

...which makes for a great vagina reference.

[soumyasch]

Isn't DirectX a proprietary MS API? Wouldn't that mean Sony having to license it? Wouldn't that mean Sony handing over confidential business info to a competitor, giving them a much longer early warning? Wouldn't that automatically prevent any sane company from doing so?

[soniqstylz]

Isn't DirectX a proprietary MS API? Wouldn't that mean Sony having to license it? Wouldn't that mean Sony handing over confidential business info to a competitor, giving them a much longer early warning? Wouldn't that automatically prevent any sane company from doing so?

That being said, the DirectX SDK does not require a license (other than the one for Windows). It's "free" to use for development, and the DirectX Runtime is free to distribute as well. For full details, read the license agreement.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vclanguage/thread/66e45b84-19da-4d34-837a-b4b4ba9d08c3/

[soumyasch]

http://social.msdn.m...a-b4b4ba9d08c3/

Sony is not creating an app that uses the DirectX runtime that MS provides in Windows, but would be porting the runtime (or a runtime that is API compatible) on their own platform. Unless they will use some version of Windows or Windows Embedded OS (which I doubt), I don't think the license agreement you are referring to covers that.

[Salutary7]

Isn't DirectX a proprietary MS API? Wouldn't that mean Sony having to license it? Wouldn't that mean Sony handing over confidential business info to a competitor, giving them a much longer early warning? Wouldn't that automatically prevent any sane company from doing so?

I believe that these days, if you have an interface that's widely used, others are allowed to freely copy that interface. The legality may vary from country to country. In this case, DirectX provides an application programming interface (API) and a device driver interface (DDI). These are so widespread that they can be considered copyable. The implementation that sits between the API and DDI, however, is very much proprietary. That's where Sony would have to do a huge amount of work to efficiently implement the libraries. This is also why people were initially predicting that Sony would go for OpenGL and other media libraries, since much of the work is already done for them. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to develop games for both platforms, and that would at least be reason enough for Sony to think about such an undertaking. But, these are after all just rumors, so we'll have to wait a bit and see.

[neufuse Veteran]

of course they will release before xbox 720, because xbox 720 doesn't exist!

[Emn1ty]

...which makes for a great vagina reference.

NextBox