Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PlayStation 4 took center stage at Sony’s Gamescom press conference highlighting a few important points regarding the company’s next gen console.
“So this February, after five years of development, we were finally able to reveal to the world our newest home console, the PlayStation 4. We had a number of goals in mind while developing the hardware. We knew that performance would be critical so we set our targets at 10 times the performance of any previous console and the result is the hardware that makes it possible to have stunning graphics, rich interactive worlds in the games that you have seen today, ” he said.
He also believes that the PlayStation 4 is the most powerful gaming console and it will satisfy gamers as well as game developers.
“PlayStation 4 is the world’s most powerful game console. We also knew that to satisfy gamers, we would need to bring the very best games to the platform. So during the development of the hardware we toured the world, conversing in-depth with game creators about what sort of feature set they would like to see in the next generation console. And this collaborative approach extended to the design of the controller as well, as we fined tuned it in many ways making it more accurate, more responsive and a more ideal controller for first person shooters. Through these close relationships with some of the best teams in the world we have been able to architect a console that truly is by game creators for game creators, that combines very large processing power with remarkable ease of game development.
And gamers will be thrilled by some of the biggest names in the business are leveraging this accessibility to bring blockbuster games to the platform such as Watch Dogs, Destiny and Killzone. The result is the strongest launch lineup in PlayStation history. And our launch window and launch line up shows great breadth and diversity because the super charge PC architecture of the platform has resulted in to ease of development for smaller teams as well. It is both quicker to bring indie titles to PlayStation 4 and quicker to develop them on the platform. ”
He then talks about how indie games are important to the PlayStation eco-system, giving Sony more variety in user experience.
“Indie brings us a vital dimension, being the best place to play has always meant supporting a broad range of experiences. Whether that be PaRappa the Rapper on the original PlayStation or last year’s Journey on PS3. We wanted to provide gamers with endless variety of beautiful, challenging and endless variety of fantastic experiences. And the passion of small teams is critical in transforming that goal into reality. We have been taking the launch of the PS4 as an opportunity to elevate the presence of these indie teams further. On the technolgy we support Unity. On the business side we fully support self publishing on all platforms so it is possible for the developers to maintain creative and financial control. We’re supporting indie development financially in many ways, through loaner devkits, our incubation program and direct support. We’ve been reaching out to innovative teams, to ensure that their projects make their exclusive console debut on PlayStation,” he said
“As a consequence we believe that a renaissance of gaming is coming on PlayStation 4. Heavy content will thrive on the platform but in many ways will also result in to creative freedom and broad content that made the early years of the PlayStation so unforgettable,” he added.
Source: Sony LiveStream