So… the next generation consoles…

On a lighter note both next generation consoles pricing and features were revealed last night!

PS4 at £349

Xbox One at £429

What’s everyones opinion on the pricing?

Xbox One Breakdown

Designed to deliver a whole new generation of entertainment, Xbox One puts you at the centre of all your games, TV, movies, music, sports and Skype.

Introducing Xbox One

With Xbox One, games push the boundaries of reality, and TV obeys your commands. Say “Xbox On” to launch your personalised Xbox One Home screen, watch your favourite TV programmes or share your latest game results with your friends, all using voice commands. And no more switching inputs to watch TV or play a game; with an eight-core, x86 processor and over 5 billion transistors, with Xbox One you can instantly navigate from a game to your entertainment with no performance loss.

Some of the breakthrough Xbox One features include:

• TV on Xbox One. Navigate and watch live TV from your cable, telco or satellite set-top box through your Xbox One.
• Voice Command. Turn on your entertainment system by saying “Xbox On,” and a custom-tailored Home dashboard welcomes you with your favourite games, TV and entertainment.
• Snap. Do two things at once on your screen. Use Snap to jump into a multiplayer battle while watching your favourite movie, or talk with friends on Skype while watching live TV.
• Skype made for Xbox One. Talk with friends on your TV in HD, or hold group Skype calls on your TV.
• Trending. See which entertainment is popular with your friends, and discover what is trending within the Xbox community.
• OneGuide. Find your favourite entertainment easily, searching by network, name or time, all with the sound of your voice and presented in a tailored programme guide.

 

A New Generation of Xbox LIVE

 

The all-new generation of Xbox Live is more powerful, more personal and more intelligent. It makes everything more convenient and accessible, from allowing games to be installed in segments so that gameplay can start quickly, to updates downloading in the background. Save and store your personalised profile, games and entertainment in the cloud to access them anytime, from any Xbox One console. In addition, existing Xbox Live Gold Membership for Xbox 360 will seamlessly carry over to Xbox One. Xbox Live takes you deeper into the games you love with all-new features.

• Smart Match. A new Smart Match matchmaking system virtually eliminates waiting in lobbies by estimating wait times and finding people you want to play with.
• Game DVR. A dedicated Game DVR captures and accesses your gameplay, all saved to the cloud, so you can share your best gaming moments with your friends.
• Living Games. Dynamic, living worlds evolve and improve the more you play, and advanced artificial intelligence can learn to play like you, so friends can play against your shadow.
• Expanded achievements. A new and expanded achievements system captures video of your epic moments and rewards you in new ways, and your Gamerscore carries over from Xbox 360.
• Xbox SmartGlass. Xbox SmartGlass is part of the Xbox One platform, so it can render content directly onto your device. Now more devices can connect at one time for multiplayer and shared entertainment.

 

Xbox One Unwrapped

 

• The console: Shaped in the 16:9 aspect ratio with a horizontal orientation optimised for its high-speed Blu-ray disc player. It is moulded in a rich liquid black colour and includes a distinctive beveled edge.
• The Kinect sensor: Completely redesigned, the 1080p Kinect is more precise, more responsive and more intuitive. It has dramatically expanded its field of view and fidelity and works in nearly any lighting condition, recognises precise motion control from a slight wrist rotation, and distinguishes your voice even in a noisy room.
• The controller: Refreshed with more than 40 technical and design innovations including updated directional pad, thumb stick and ergonomic fit. Plus precision and control have been dramatically increased with all new vibrating impulse triggers. The Xbox One Wireless Controller is designed to work in concert with the new Kinect.

Development

Please note: Features and requirements of Xbox One are under development and may change prior to release. Available features and content may vary by country. Broadband Internet (ISP fees apply) and advanced TV hardware required. Games and media content sold separately. Xbox LIVE Gold Membership, paid subscription and other requirements apply for some Xbox LIVE features.

Current availability of features:

• Live TV with Kinect navigation, Live TV with One Guide, Trending, and NFL on Xbox are not yet currently available in the UK.
• Kinect voice functionality only available in supported locales and languages.
• At launch, Live TV will require a supported receiver device with HDMI output (sold separately).
• Cloud storage subject to geographical content restrictions.
• Some Xbox Live content and features available on Xbox 360, including avatar content and some apps, are not available with Xbox Live on Xbox One.
• Xbox SmartGlass is available in supported games.

PS4 Breakdown

This next generation computer entertainment system redefines rich and immersive gameplay with powerful graphics and speed, intelligent personalisation, deeply integrated social capabilities, and innovative second-screen features. Combined with PlayStation Network with cloud technology, PS4 offers an expansive gaming ecosystem that is centered on gamers, enabling them to play when, where and how they want.

Gamer Focused, Developer Inspired

PS4 was designed from the ground up to ensure that the very best games and the most immersive experiences reach PlayStation gamers. PS4 accomplishes this by enabling the greatest game developers in the world to unlock their creativity and push the boundaries of play through a system that is tuned specifically to their needs.

PS4 also fluidly connects players to the larger world of experiences offered by PlayStation, across the console and mobile spaces, and PlayStation Network (PSN). The PS4 system architecture is distinguished by its high performance and ease of development. PS4 is centered around a powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state of the art graphics processor.

The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has been enhanced in a number of ways, principally to allow for easier use of the GPU for general purpose computing (GPGPU) such as physics simulation. The GPU contains a unified array of 18 compute units, which collectively generate 1.84 Teraflops of processing power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two.

PS4 is equipped with 8 GB of unified system memory, easing game creation and increasing the richness of content achievable on the platform. GDDR5 is used for this memory, giving the system 176 GB/second of bandwidth and providing a further boost to graphics performance. The end result for gamers is new games with rich, high-fidelity graphics and deeply immersive experiences that shatter expectations.

Shared Game Experiences

Social interaction is central to PS4 experiences, so new features were built into the actual foundation of the system’s hardware architecture. PS4 provides dedicated, ‘always on’ video compression and decompression systems that enables seamless uploading of gameplay.

For the first time ever, gamers can share their epic triumphs with the press of a button. Gamers simply hit the ‘SHARE button’ on the controller, scan through the last few minutes of gameplay, tag it and return to the game—the video uploads as the gamer plays. Gamers can share their images and videos to their friends on social networking services such as Facebook.

PS4 also enhances social spectating by enabling gamers to broadcast their gameplay in real-time to friends using live internet streaming services such as Ustream. During live broadcasts, friends can make comments on the streamed gameplay and, if a gamer gets stuck on a challenging level, friends can also join the game in completely new ways. For example, friends can offer health potions or special weapons when a player needs them most during actual gameplay.

Furthermore, users can connect their Facebook account with Sony Entertainment Network account. Through PS4, users are able to deepen their connections through co-op play or ‘cross-game chat’.

PS4 Second Screens

PS4 integrates second screens, including PlayStation Vita, smartphones and tablets, to wrap gamers in their favorite content wherever they are. A key feature enabled by second screens is ‘Remote Play’ and PS4 fully unlocks its potential by making PS Vita the ultimate companion device. With PS Vita, gamers will be able to seamlessly pull PS4 titles from their living room TVs and play them on PS Vita’s beautiful 5-inch display and intuitive dual analog sticks over Wi-Fi networks.

A new application called ‘PlayStation App’ will enable iPhone, iPad, and Android based smartphones and tablets to become second screens. Once installed on these devices, users can, for example, see maps on their second screens when playing an adventure game, purchase PS4 games while away from home and download it directly to the console at home, or remotely watch other gamers playing on their devices.

Immediate Gameplay

PS4 radically reduces the lag time between players and their content. PS4 features ‘suspend mode’ which keeps the system in a low power state while preserving the game session. The time it takes today to boot a console and load a saved game will be a thing of the past. With PS4, gamers just hit the power button again and are promptly back playing the game at the exact point where they left off. Additionally, users can boot a variety of applications including a web browser when playing a game on PS4.

PS4 also enables games to be downloaded or updated in the background, or even in stand-by mode. The system takes it one step further by making digital titles playable as they are being downloaded. When a player purchases a game, PS4 downloads just a fraction of the data so gamers can start playing immediately, and the rest is downloaded in the background during actual gameplay.

Personalised, Curated Content

On the newly designed PS4 menu screen, players can look over game-related information shared by friends, view friends’ gameplay with ease, or obtain information of recommended content, including games, TV shows and movies. The long-term goal of PS4 is to reduce download times of digital titles to zero: if the system knows enough about a player to predict the next game they will purchase, then that game can be loaded and ready to go before they even click the ‘buy’ button. PS4 will further enrich users’ entertainment experiences, by meeting their potential needs.

Gaming in the Cloud

Launched in November 2006, PlayStation Network, a network service for PlayStation users, now operates in 67 countries and regions around the world with the total number of downloaded content of more than 2.8 billion. In addition to a variety of games available in PlayStation Store, PS4 users will be able to enjoy a variety of services offered by PSN, such as Sony Corporation’s Music Unlimited, a cloud-based music subscription service and Video Unlimited, a premium video service, as well as various content distribution services.

By combining PlayStation Network with Gaikai Inc’s cloud technology, it is SCE’s goal to make free exploration possible for various games. In the future, when a gamer sees a title of interest in PlayStation Store, they can immediately start playing a portion of the actual game–not a stripped down version of the game. With Gaikai and PlayStation Store, gamers will be able to experience appealing games and only pay for the games they actually love. PlayStation Network and the cloud will offer additional value to PlayStation gamers. SCE is exploring unique opportunities enabled by cloud technology with the long-term vision of making PlayStation libraries including an incredible catalog of more than 3000 PS3 titles that is unmatched in the industry, mostly ubiquitous on PS4.

Technical Specifications

Main Processor

• Single-chip custom processor
• CPU : x86-64 AMD “Jaguar”, 8 cores
• GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon based graphics engine

Memory

• GDDR5 8GB

Hard Disk Drive

• Built-in

Optical Drive (read only)

• BD 6xCAV
• DVD 8xCAV
• I/O
• Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0) AUX

Communication

• Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)
• IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)

AV output

• HDMI
• Analog-AV out
• Digital Output (optical)