Still have some unanswered questions about the PS4? This might help.
Until we get our hand onto Sony’s next PlayStation we won’t know entirely everything about it, but that’s not to say Sony is keeping quiet.
In a recent video by Sony’s official PlayStation Access YouTube channel, community manager Hollie Bennett answered some quick questions presented by the gaming community.
For one, the PS4 will indeed have party chat (also known as cross-game chat), so you can talk to some of your 2000 friends –which is the PS4’s friend list cap.
Unfortunately yet quite predictably, the PS4 will not support the DualShock 3. Interestingly, Sony will still try and make use of those Move controllers by allowing them to work with the PS4. It should also be noted that the wireless PS3 Stereo Headset will continue to be supported into the next generation.
As previously known by those who snuck into the Feb. 20th reveal, online play will require a PlayStation Plus enriched PSN account, but it’s been clarified that online applications (Hulu, Netflix, etc.) will not require PS+, nor will free to play games or the use of party chat.
Another lesser known fact swept into that conference was the size of the PS4’s hard drive. Sadly (and puzzlingly) the next PlayStation will come standard with a 500gb HDD drive, which seems rather small for a push for digital content over the next decade. Luckily, the hard drive is upgradable just like the PS3’s is.
Some of the lesser tidbits mentioned are that the PS4 will be “jet black”, rather than the PS3’s “piano black”, and Sony is still marching on with the idea of 3D gaming. Also, the PlayStation camera shoots in 3D, has 4 mic’s for input/output audio, shoots into 3D spaces and provides the AR (Augmented Reality) technology that has yet to actually take off.
The XMB, now dubbed the “dynamic menu”, was also mentioned and from seeing it in play I can tell you that it’s a stylistic mix of Windows 8, the current PS Store, Twitter and Facebook.
The most obvious note was how PSN ID’s will carry over into the next-gen, including your avatar and username. There’s still no word yet on if/when we will ever be able to change the embarrassing PSN ID’s we chose in our naive years close to a decade ago.
