PlayStation 4 PlayStation 4

Released on TBD

• God of War developer can't wait to work on PlayStation 4

  SONY Santa Monica, the studio responsible for the God of War series, is very excited about the launch of PlayStation 4. The new console boasts a whopping 8Gb of RAM, far more than existing hardware. "We're going to be able to show a lot more, right?" lead game designer Mark Simon told Eurogamer. "If you give us enough time and you give us those specs, we will blow you away."

  For now, the team is still concentrating on prequel title God of War: Ascension which launches this week, with plans to support the game's new multiplayer mode for months after release. "To me [the PS4] is imagination land," Simon explains. "We haven't touched it. We're not even concentrating on it. All we're concentrating on is we know we release in a week. We're going to continue to tune and balance and create new content. We still get to think about and imagine how cool it would be, but we're still working on this game on the PS3."

  And he doesn't feel we've seen the limits of what the PS3 can do yet. "It's funny. In my head right now I'm like, oh yeah, we totally had to have tapped it out. But I bet you, if you gave us the same hardware, and you gave us another two or three years we would find more stuff to try to extract out of the PS3."

  "It's cool for fans," he continued. "I'd be excited if I was a PS3 owner because, I'd know SONY is not just leaving me hanging or waiting until the next-gen comes out, that they're still kicking out really awesome games for me. There's the future, and you're like, oh cool! But there's a whole spring, summer and fall to get through."

  God of War: Ascension is out on March 12th, exclusively for PlayStation 3.

  Published: 11/03/2013

• Diablo 3 Coming To PlayStation 3 And 4

  Blizzard's Chris Metzen dropped a bomb at SONY's big night. The best-selling PC action-RPG Diablo 3 will be released for both the PlayStation 3 and the recently revealed fourth iteration of SONY's flagship gaming platform. Metzen took to the stage to announce the long-rumoured console port, and explain just how the developers have gone about transferring fiddly mouse and keyboard controls to a console gamepad.

  For a start, the controls have been fully customized for the couch-loving gamer, and the game's user interface has been overhauled to make navigating the world and its menus much easier. You'll be able to play the game in single-player mode, with three other players online or - most excitingly of all - up to four players in the same room and on the same console.

  It will also include all of the content that's been released for the PC edition since launch. A post on Blizzard's official website explained exactly what you can expect from the console version when it launches:

  "Diablo 3 for the PS3/PS4 will be based on the core PC game and feature all the latest updates, including Paragon levels, the Infernal Machine event, Monster Power, Brawling, and more."

  Sounds good to us.

  Diablo 3 caused no small amount of controversy when it was released for the PC last year. The game requires a constant online connection to even work, and the real-money auction house left a nasty taste in many gamers' mouths. That didn't it from selling millions though, and while we don't know how these aspects of the game will be transferred to consoles, we have no doubt it will top the charts all over again.

  Published: 22/02/2013

• PlayStation 4 revealed!

  At a lavish event in New York, SONY has finally fired the starting pistol on the next lap of its race with Microsoft to dominate the space under your telly. The new console is simply called PlayStation 4, but will bring a host of innovative new ideas to the table.

  Details of what lurks within the hardware are still to be fully revealed, as SONY has perhaps wisely concentrated on what the console will do for gamers, rather than bombarding us with figures that only make sense to engineers. However, it will be beefier than the PlayStation 3 in every respect, with much faster processors - 1.84 Teraflops of raw power, should that mean anything to you - and the flexibility to allow developers to decide how and where that power is used, rather than setting big chunks of it aside just for graphics.

  Its in functionality that the PS4 is most impressive. A very social machine, there's a "share" button on the new Dual Shock 4 controller that will let you pick clips from the last three minutes of gameplay, regardless of what you're playing, and post them to the social network of your choice. Using the Gaikai cloud system, you'll also be able to pipe live gameplay to friends directly, and also check out what they're doing.

  Gaikai will also shake up the PlayStation Store, enabling you to instantly launch a playable demo of any game you're interested in. Thanks to some sort of science voodoo, you'll even be able to start playing downloadable games before they've finished downloading. The bad news is that the PlayStation 4 will not be backwards compatible with PlayStation 3 discs, but SONY has confirmed that it's hoping to use Gaikai's streaming capabilities to allow previous PlayStation titles to be playable on the new console.

  SONY also cleared up rumours that the PlayStation 4 will block users from playing second hand games. Quizzed by Eurogamer after the launch event, SONY Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida said quite simply: "Used games can play on PS4."

  There will also be a new dual-camera PlayStation Eye in the box, along with a headset, which will offer face recognition, as well as motion and voice control. There will also be a free PlayStation app for various mobiles and tablets, allowing second screen control much like Microsoft's SmartGlass.

  Finally, good news for PS Vita owners - Remote Play remains a central pillar of the PlayStation strategy, and the aim is for every PlayStation 4 game to be instantly playable on the PS Vita as well.

  So that's the PlayStation 4 and the next gen battle has begun. No fixed release date or price has been mentioned, but SONY ended its presentation with the promise "Holiday 2013" which is American for "this winter".
  

  Published: 21/02/2013

• PlayStation 4: The Games!

  The curtain may have been drawn back on the PlayStation 4, but what will we be playing on the thing? SONY has announced ten new titles, including some mouth-watering exclusives, with more on the way.

  From SONY's own studios come two classic franchises, muscled up for next generation. Guerilla Games is working on Killzone: Shadow Fall, planned as a launch title. This will be an FPS, of course, but we're promised a "new world, a new situation and a new hero". It looks stunning, naturally.

  Sucker Punch, meanwhile, is offering Infamous: Second Son. Set seven years after the events of the previous games, you'll play as Delsin Rowe, a young directionless slacker who discovers he has the ability to direct, control and transform into smoke. Seattle will be the city you'll be romping around in your reluctant superhero (or maybe supervillain) guise.

  Capcom is working on a new fantasy RPG for the system called Deep Down, while LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule showcased an untitled new game which saw the team manipulating on-screen puppets using Move controllers. Acclaimed indie developer Jonathan Blow took the stage to announce that The Witness, his long awaited openworld mystery follow up to Braid, will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive.

  Platforming fans will be catered for by Knack, a new game from Mark Cerny and SONY's Japan studio. Cerny was instrumental in such series as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank, so you know it'll be lovely.

  We also now know that Ubisoft's promising cyberpunk openworld game Watch Dogs will come to PlayStation 4 as well as current gen consoles, as will Bungie's massive sci-fi social shooter Destiny. Blizzard's Diablo III will also come to the console, as well as PlayStation 3.

  Also incoming are a new Final Fantasy game from Square Enix, and team-based racing game Drive Club from the folks at Motorstorm studio Evolution.

  And that's just the games that have been announced so far. Expect even more once industry events like E3 and Gamescom start cranking up the hype.

  Published: 21/02/2013

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