Monday, November 11, 2013

PS4 Launch Only Days Away!

It is finally that time ladies and gentlemen. The moment we have all been waiting for since the rumors began to circulate. The home gaming console/entertainment system that will now own your social life for the next 2 years. The long awaited, brand new, sexy PlayStation 4. The launch of a new, or "next gen" console is literally better than Christmas for some gamers, yours truly being one of them. Although I am a Sony fan myself, the Microsoft lovers have something to look forward too as well with the upcoming launch of the new Xbox One. But as is customary for every next gen console launch, a new console war will ensue and it looks to be something of a tech bloodbath this time around. Lets take a look at what the PS4 will be offering us.

Lets start with the new DualShock 4 controller. This new controller keeps things a bit familiar for PS3 fan boys by remaining wireless, lightweight, and as the name would suggest, "shocking". But here is where the difference comes in; the share button. The new controller actually has the ability to record game play, then share it to the PS4 online community or straight to Facebook and other social media sites. It is one of the best and most impressive features that Sony and the PlayStation 4 are utilizing to keep the gaming market fresh and ever expanding. Having an integrated touch pad along with the previous model's SixAxis feature is going to make this bad boy something to look at no matter what type of gamer you are.

What about the actual console though? Well the overall exterior has done away with the curved look and gone for a more hard cut, but still sleek, and slanted shape. But the exterior is really just the icing on the cake. Lets look at the guts. We are talking an x86-64 AMD "Jaguar" single chip processor clocked in at around 1.6 Ghz with 8 cores. This already sounds like a monster and the AMD Radeon next-gen graphics engine sitting in the GPU department is only going to make you more confused on if you are playing a game or playing a movie. The stock 500 gigabyte hard drive will be removable as was the hard drive on the PS3, but 500 gigs is a really nice starting point. As later, more slim models come out, it would be expected that the stock storage will increase with each version.

So here is the verdict (as if you couldn't tell already). This system, I feel, is going to mark a very big milestone in gaming history, mainly due to the huge push for community sharing with its gaming. This is something that Xbox fans may not be getting if you happened to watch the E3 press conferences. Nevertheless, this beautifully elegant and incredible machine is a MUST buy for any hardcore gamer, or even someone new to gaming. Sony has put in countless hours into making this machine something to talk about for while now, and with the $399 starting price tag, it would seem almost ludicrous to not put this under the tree this year. This starting price is also actually $100 cheaper than the new Xbox One. But to wrap this up, I will put this as contritely as I can. Buy. This. System.