All about Playstation

PlayStation 4 will support 4K playback, but Sony needs to be careful lest it repeat past mistakes

Sony is banking on 4K resolution televisions to boost its home entertainment business so the PlayStation 4 is joining the 4K party.

3D television? Feh. Smart TVs? Whatever. The new hotness in the increasingly desperate television business is 4K resolution, televisions with a horizontal resolution of 4000 pixels. The pixel density of 1080p HD televisions pales in comparison! 4K makes for enormous HD televisions with resolutions comparable to Apple’s iPhone 4 Retina Display. That’s why they call them “Ultra Definition.” These TVs are bananas. Take the LG 84-inch 4K: It is $22,000. Sony’s got one in the works too, the 80-inch XBR, which will cost around $30,000.

No one is going to be buying these things anytime soon. That isn’t stopping Sony from making the PlayStation 4 capable of outputting in 4K.

Boy Genius Report reported on Wednesday that a source indicated that the PlayStation 4, sometimes called Orbis, will support 4K playback.

Now luckily this won’t make the PlayStation 4 an astronomically expensive doodad out the gates like the PlayStation 3 was. Sony currently sells Blu-ray players capable of 4K playback for around $200.

Sony, and more specifically designer Ken Kutaragi, made the PlayStation 3 as a future-proofed catch all last decade. It had Blu-ray. It output in 1080p when the vast majority of games weren’t made for the resolution and most people hadn’t even upgraded to HD televisions. As a result, the console cost $500 when it first came out, a price that guaranteed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 a lasting head start in sales.

If 4K is a perk that doesn’t drive up the PS4’s price, then Sony should have at it. If however Sony thinks that a grand push with 4K across all of its entertainment devices is going to result in rejuvenating its television business, it should think again. Sony’s entertainment business has sagged in recent years because of the company’s insistence on technologies that consumers just aren’t interested in. 3D TV in particular has been an enormous failure for Sony.

It’s only been in the past two years that HD television adoption has finally picked up steam, and it’s still far from ubiquitous. Only 69 percent of US households have an HDTV according to Leichtman Research Group.

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai recently said that Sony needs to build its entertainment businesses—music, movies, video games, etc.—to succeed. He’s right. Sony’s hardware business meanwhile needs to take a page from Samsung’s playbook: Make it cheap.

Preview: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Packs Explosive Strategic Multiplayer

This Battle Royale is every bit as engaging as the familiar Brawl.

Who hasn’t fantasized about less-than-likely Sony character crossovers? Who hasn’t envisioned a knock-down, drag-out battle to the death between iconic PlayStation mainstays at a time? Those might sound like bizarre gaming fantasies, but at least a few of us have sat and pondered how such a game might pan out.

Well, the time for speculation is over with the release of the PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale beta, showcasing brawling action and shiny new character rosters as well as a tiny taste of what’s to come when the full game releases. While at first glance it more than strongly resembles a certain Nintendo-borne party fighter you’re probably familiar with, upon spending a few hours with the newest prize fighter in town, it’s clear that the differences attributed to the “new kid” ensure it’s worlds apart. In short, this might be the next great Battle Royale, barring the insanely popular Japanese film series.

Battle Royale pits four players against each other in various Sony-themed stages as several “mascot-type” combatants. Included within the beta are Kratos (God of War), Radec (Killzone), Sly Cooper, Fat Princess, Parappa the Rapper, and Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal), all wildly different brawlers each with their own power-ups and special attacks. It’s obvious which characters are more specialized with close and long-range combat, and which are considered more “novelty” options, but each player is outfitted with proficient movesets.

(Source: gamerlive.tv)

PS4 release date, news and rumours

Latest rumours suggest that the PS4 will launch in time for Christmas 2013, though Sony are remaining quiet on the issue.

VG247 is quoting an anonymous source (always a bad start to a rumour) as saying that Sony believes it is in a position to get the PS4 out of the door before the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox 720.

We remember, of course, how Microsoft managed to launch the 360 a full year before the PS3 went on sale and that enabled it to gain a huge headstart, despite all sorts of technical faults and expensive repair bills.

So it’s a no-brainer that Sony will be looking to make sure that doesn’t happen this time. How it can be so sure of beating Microsoft to the punch is another matter though, and as usual we’d take these anonymous comments with a glass of salty water.

Meanwhile, if you side with the likes of ITProPortal, you might believe that “the whole concept of a single lounge-bound gaming device may become obsolete”. The future of gaming may well lie in a more portable device/controller that you can play on the move or plug into your TV. Epic’s Mark Rein has some interesting thoughts on this here.

Senior execs for a big US retailer told their shareholders that they don’t expect the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 til 2014. That seems like a good guess to us, even though Sony has always said the PS3 will have a 10-year life cycle (which began in 2006).

Bethesda’s Todd Howard, game director for the blockbuster Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, also says that gamers should not expect follow-ups to the PS3 and Xbox 360 until 2014, at the very earliest.

Mafia 3, Thief 4 jump to Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 in 2013

Thief 4 and Mafia 3 are amongst the many games said to be moving from current consoles to Microsoft Durango and Sony Orbis.
 

The Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 may have some heavy hitters in their respective launch line-ups if rumors prove true. Publishers Square-Enix and 2K Games have high-profile sequels in the works that, while previously expected for Sony and Microsoft’s aging PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 respectively, will be retooled for the next generation of consoles and are expected to be available when they release at the end of 2013.

(Source: iloveplaystation)