According to the LinkedIn profile of Attila Vass, who used to be the Director of Research & Development at SCEA, the “Next Generation” PlayStation has been in development for almost two years. Picked up by VideoGamer, the profile claims that they were working on the graphics library and security on “Next Generation” platforms way back in August 2010.
Speaking last week to MCV, Andrew House, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, had an interesting response when asked about the PlayStation 4 and “why is now not the time to talk about a new PlayStation.” He also had quite a bit to say about the PlayStation Vita and how it’s doing in the market.
According to some “reliable” specs over on NeoGAF, the PS4 hardware is “more or less set in stone.” The forum post indicates that the PS4, codenamed “Orbis” will feature a AMD CPU with 4 cores and a AMD GPU capable of producing 1.8 teraflops. The RAM is also set at a rather low 2GB of GDDR5 RAM, and unlikely to be upgraded to 4GB.
If the Wall Street Journal are to be believed, the successor to the PlayStation 3 is due in 2013, and was considered to be download-only at one point. WSJ sources claim that Sony “considered but ultimately rejected a download-only plan” for the PlayStation 4.
Its looks like a Software Engineering at SCEA has accidentally let slip that he has worked on maintaining a “voice chat library” for the PlayStation 4. Frederick Umminger listed the role on his LinkedIn profile, but was later corrected to reference the PlayStation 3.
Publishers have long claimed that second-hand games are hurting the industry, which has lead to the rise in online Passes to access multiplayer content as a way to make some money from second-hand games. The PS4 has been rumored to block used games, but Sony’s Jack Tretton said that he was “opposed to blocking used games.”
Sony is looking for an intern to help with developing a voice recognition system. Since the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita don’t have a ‘voice recognition system’ then it’s a pretty safe assumption this can only be for a future PlayStation product (or indeed a future firmware update for either of the existing products).
Another remove about the PlayStation 4 / Orbis has been circling recently. This new rumor suggests that Orbis will support OpenGL natively. “OpenGL is a layered API on the PS3,” source have told TheSixthAxis. “It’s much easier to use than LibGCM, which is the main PS3 system.”
It appears that Sony are aiming to release the successor of the PS3 (currently dubbed Orbis) out before Microsoft get their next console out, according to sources. The report, which says that the PS4 has been in design planning stage for about two years, says that Sony are confident “it will have the console at market ahead of the next generation Xbox next Christmas.”
