Gadgetory

well this is David with the Virgin this is the PlayStation for seven years after the ps3 Sony's built a new console designed to last the next seven years this console represents Sony's best guess about what we're going to do on our TVs in the next decade and how we're going to do it but more than anything it's a $399 love letter to gamers everywhere Sony learned a lot from its last console which was essentially a bulky expensive supercomputer the ps4 is just about half the width of the original ps3 and also considerably lighter it's even thinner than Sony's latest ultra-thin ps3 which is a considerable feat the console ditches the iconic curves of its predecessor for a parallelogram design with sharp sloping edges it's really nice-looking standing out without being too gaudy it's certainly a prettier than what we've seen of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox one the front has two USB 3.0 ports next to the slot loading optical disk drive and the power an eject button sliced down the middle of the ps4 on the back of the console is a surprisingly small set of ports optical audio out HDMI Ethernet and a proprietary port for the PlayStation camera there's no power brick everything is actually inside the console it just makes everything smaller and simpler if you've a ps3 you can even use the same cables you already had hooked up and just drop the new box into your existing set up inside the ps4 is some seriously powerful silicon it has a custom processor with eight AMD Jaguar CPU cores and a next-gen radeon GPU it's based on the x86 architecture which is fairly ubiquitous but also means the ps4 isn't backwards compatible that means you won't be able to play any ps3 games on this console it has 8 gigs of memory a 500 gigabyte hard drive and a 6-speed blu-ray drive for the most part it's impressively powerful with plenty of headroom to last the next several years but there are a couple of odd oversights the ps4 doesn't support 802 11 AC Wi-Fi or 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi both of which would have allowed for faster more reliable internet connections and they're clearly the future it's just a weird thing to leave out ultimately the look and feel of the console are nice but the controller is what you'll end up holding in your hands all day as you play games it's called the Dual Shock 4 and it's easily the best controller Sony's ever made it looks a fair amount like the DualShock 3 from the PlayStation 3 but it has longer much more comfortable grips with better spaced concave analog sticks more comfortable triggers on the back and only a couple of awkward buttons in the middle the Dual Shock 4 also has a light bar on the back which the system can use to identify by the controllers along with a touchpad in the middle that works well for some things but won't exactly replace some house there's even a speaker in the controller itself plus a headphone jack that means you can use it for voice chat or even plug in any old pair of headphones import all the ps4's audio through the controller instead the first thing you see after a quick mostly painless setup process is a blue screen with Sony's normal soft music and moving backgrounds plus a list of everything you've ever done on your console it shows all the games you've played in reverse chronological order with your library at the very end of the list at first it makes getting to the games you want to play really easy but the long list you can't sort yourself gets cumbersome really fast click into any game you've ever installed or played and you'll see the most recent activity within that game what your friends are playing what they're sharing from that game and achievements they've earned all the social gaming is tied really tightly into the core OS and it makes playing with or alongside your friends a lot more fun there's also an endless stream of your friends activity in the what's new section of the menu which is cool but it can get really cluttered if you have more than a few friends flick the analog stick up and you're taken into the primary menu that's where you see your profile friend requests notifications and settings there are still a lot of text menus to go through a lot of options to check and select but the interface is really fast and mostly looks really good on the TV if nothing else it's the speed that makes that a lot more fun to use even switching between users is easier than ever using your controllers and the light bars to figure out who's trying to do something you'll need to pay $49.99 a year for a PlayStation Plus subscription in order to join others in online gaming all this systems social features are still free so you don't necessarily need to pay just to interact with your friends but with that subscription you also get discounts on games free games and more it's really worth the price of admission there are a few media apps that come with the ps4 from Netflix and Hulu to crackle and NBA gametime they're mostly good apps and Sony likes to talk about how popular the ps3 was for Netflix but the apps are clearly not the point of the console they're all buried in one menu item on the home screen and the library itself is pretty small and as if to further drive the point home Sony's actually removed the ability to play back local content like music videos and photos on the console every single thing about the ps4 is designed in service of making games great and nothing else like the totally seamless way to share clips from your gameplay on Twitch or Ustream or to see what your friends are doing of course watching people play games is going to get a lot better when the actual game themselves get better most of the ps4 launch titles look great more detailed and impressive than ever but most of them just look better there's not really much in the way of meaningful different gameplay here a few games like Need for Speed rivals even run into occasional framerate issues it looks great when it works well but it doesn't always work well and that's kind of worrisome given that this is the console that's supposed to have plenty of power left to spare for the next decade Mac is one of the big exclusives for ps4 s launch and the games a lot of fun it's not overwhelmingly impressive technically but it's a fun relentless game you can play for hours games like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty ghosts don't feel that different than they did on the old consoles and while Killzone Shadowfall is beautiful it's really just a basic shooter but that's the thing about launch games they're almost never good and the ps4 is certain to get good games even if the most fun game right now is resogun an ultra simple game that feels a bit like geometry Wars what's coming next is really what's most interesting about the ps4 this is a console designed to last a long time to sell eight years from now as much as to sell today the ability to stream games from your ps4 to your PlayStation Vita is remarkable and works really well even if it's not always optimized for the small screen you're using the PlayStation camera for now is incredibly basic you get a couple of voice controls and it does a nice job of identifying you but there's no game support or even really useful system control that could come soon though even the PlayStation app for Android and iOS which for now acts mostly as a better alternative to the on-screen keyboard has some huge potential and in general the ps4 is all about potential it's a faster simpler console with a great new design and a great new controller it has a fun few games though the lineup is going to get a lot better over time Sony fixed a lot of what ailed the ps3 but it's clearly only at the beginning of its journey here if you don't have your heart set on buying a console right now the best course of action is to wait we haven't seen what the Xbox one can do yet and even the ps4 has a lot of growing left to do but it's clear that Sony's built a fast useful console designed to make a lot of gamers very happy and there's little doubt this 399 device will do just that the only question is how long it's going to take you