SONY Play Station 4 release date, news and features

The PlayStation 4 will go on sale in November this year and it'll be cheaper than the Xbox One - $399 in the U.S., £349 in the U.K. and €399 - compared to $499 and £429.

It'll hit stores in the US on November 15 while European gamers will have to wait just a little longer until November 29.

Gaining favourable previews and plenty of pre-orders, the PS4 looks like the next-gen console to beat, and Sony says it was designed with an overarching theme of a "frictionless and seamless" gaming experience.

We've known that the PS4 will track both the controller in a gamer's hand, as well as their face, since the console's launch in February. But during his GDC talk Norden revealed some interesting ways that this technology will be implemented in games.

For example, the old multiplayer split screen, divvying up television realestate when two or more players go at it, will be aided by this tracking tech. If a gamer gets up and moves right or left, his section of the screen will automatically be swapped.

We learned a whole lot more when Sony gave its E3 presentation, so read on for all you need to know about the new PlayStation...

PS4 release date

The official PS4 release date was announced at Gamescom 2013. The PS4 will go on sale on Nov. 15 in the U.S., followed by the U.K. on Nov. 29. Australia will also see the console then, while Canada too shares the U.S.'s Nov. 15 launch date.

PS4 price

Sony announced the PS4 price at E3 - it'll cost $399 in the US, £349 in the UK and €399 in Europe when it goes on sale in November. That's a whole $100 cheaper than the Xbox One.

That price, it must be said, does not include the PlayStation Camera, whereas the Xbox One will ship with the second version of Kinect.

PS4 used games/online check-in

The PS4 will offer unrestricted access to pre-owned games. So when you buy a titles, you are free to then trade it in at retail, sell it to another person, lend it to a friend or keep it. Microsoft initially intended to restrict these factors with the Xbox One, but significant backlash from the gaming community forced it to backtrack and feature-match the PS4.

PS4's free features

Microsoft is famous for locking many of its Xbox Live features (Sky Go etc) behind the paywall of its Xbox Live Gold service, while Sony largely allows additional features to run for free. This is set to continue with the PS4, after Sony confirmed that features such as party chat, play free-to-play games like Planetside 2, or online apps like Netflix will all be free to access even if you don't have a PlayStation Plus subscription.xxxxx

Synergy with PlayStation Vita

The PS4 will launch with the ability to stream games directly to your PS Vita. In exactly the same way as the Wii U allows you to switch off your TV and continue playing on the tablet controller, the PS4 will wirelessly send your games to the Vita.

There will be similar synergy between "all Sony devices" which means Xperia handsets and tablets, Bravia TVs and BD players.

At the end of July, Sony revealed that the PS Vita will actually be able to control PS4 games themselves, providing that developers bake that functionality into their games.

This is a strong indication that Wii U-like gaming, using the Vita as a second screen, is on the way.

PS4 specs

AMD's technology is coursing through this new system's veins, and Sony recently told us that it believes the PS4 to be the most powerful gaming device every conceived. Sony revealed the system runs on a single-chip custom processor and utilises eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU cores, with a next-gen AMD Radeon based graphics engine powering the way.

So it's very much a PC-based system then, which is great news for developers who will find it much easier to code games for the next gen consoles and for PCs. However, that CPU is hardly next-gen - it may have been heavily modified for this system but the AMD Jaguar platform is by no means the fastest of its kind - indeed it's slower than Intel's fastest by orders of magnitude.

However, with fewer redundancies than a PC has, the PS4 will certainly be able to make use of every single Watt of power it draws. And the games we've seen so far certainly look impressive.

The "highly enhanced PC GPU" is another AMD part - something along the lines of a Radeon 7850 card - and packs 18 GCN units. That may sound a like a lot of techy mumbo jumbo but what it essentially means is that the GPU packs 18 processing clusters, each packing up to 64 cores. That provides a lot of parallel processing power, and will thus handle the majority of the PS4's grunt work. It hits 1.84 TFLOPS of processing power, a good chunk more than the Xbox One.

The PS4 will also use GPU compute features to take advantage of the GPU's raw power - it'll be used for general computation tasks as well as making games shiny.

Memory

The PS4 will ship packing 8GB of GDDR5 memory. That's some super-fast stuff right there and should enable lightning fast performance.

Indeed, Sony has revealed that you will be able to power down the PS4 mid-game and then switch it on again in seconds and pick up right where you left off. That's the sort of loading power that this memory enables.

The PS4 Eye will be sold separately

PlayStation 4 Eye

What's really grabbing though is the development of the PlayStation Camera, a newly developed camera system that utilises two high-sensitivity cameras equipped with wide-angle lenses and 85-degree diagonal angle views.

Sony said the cameras (amounting to 1280 x 800 pixels) can cut out the image of a player from the background or differentiate between players in the background and foreground, enhancing game play handily. There's also mention of logging in using facial recognition and using voice and body movements to play games "more intuitively."

If you want to know how these specs stack up against what we know so far about the Xbox One (clue: PS4 is more powerful) - check out our comparison of PS4 and Xbox One specs.

The DualShock 4 has been re-imagined for the next generationh

PlayStation 4 Specifications

• CPU: low power x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
• GPU: 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD Radeon™ Graphics Core Next 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, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)
• AV output: HDMI, Analog-AV out, Digital Output (optical)

DualShock 4 specifications:

• External Dimensions: Approx. 162mm x 52mm x 98mm
• Weight: Approx. 210g (tentative)
• Buttons: PS button, SHARE button, OPTIONS button, Directional buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right), Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square), R1/L1/R2/L2/R3/L3, Right stick, Left stick, Touch Pad Button, Touch Pad 2 Point Touch Pad, Click Mechanism, Capacitive Type
• Other Features: Light Bar, Vibration, Built-in Mono Speaker
• Ports: USB (Micro B), Extention Port, Stereo Headset Jack
• Wireless communication: Bluetooth® Ver2.1+EDR

PS4 camera specifications

• External Dimension: Approx. 186mm x 27mm x 27mm
• Weight: Approx. 183g
• Video Pixel: (Maximum) 1280 x 800 pixel x 2
• Video Frame Rate: 1280x800 pixel @ 60fps, 640x400 pixel @ 120fps, 320x192 pixel @ 240fps
• Video Format: RAW, YUV (uncompressed)
• Lens: Dual Lenses, F value/F2.0 fixed focus
• Field-of-View: 85 degrees
• Microphone: 4 Channel Microphone Array
• Connection Type: PS4 dedicated connector (AUX connector)
• Cable Length: Approx. 2m (tentative)

Can you see this sitting under your TV?

PS4 pre-orders

So far, you can pro-order your console at ShopTo, GAME and ASDA.

DualShock 4 gamepad

If you have an eye for details you may have noticed that the PS4'sDualShock 4 controller has no Start or Select buttons. It has an Option button instead, as well as the much bandied-about Share button on the rear.

• See what we thought when we put the DualShock 4 against the DualShock 3

The analogue sticks have been tightened up to be more precise, and the controller also features a brand new three-axis gyroscopic motion sensor with three-axis accelerometer which should be great for getting you immersed in the games. The camera continuously tracks all four controllers with precise accuracy. Rotational tracking is provided by the internal components.

The controller has a two-point Vita-like touchpad on the front with a 1920x900 resolution, and a tactile clicking sound letting you know you've pressed it. The light bar on the front will glow different colours depending on whether you're player 1, 2, 3 or 4 and will be tracked by the new PS Eye camera. The controller also has an Xbox-style headset jack and a mono speaker inside it.

Video-watchers take note

This new PS4 controller won't accidentally fast forward when you set it down. Norden said this was one of the biggest complaints his team heard about the PS3's DualShock. The PS4's controller has triggers designed not to depress when set down. What's more, Norden even said he'd been dropping controllers without skipping a single frame.

That touchpad on the DualShock 4 will be capable of two simultaneous inputs. The light on the controller will glow blue, red, green or pink light, depending on whether you're player one, two, three or four.

The Share button

The PS4's hardware encoder always records the last several minutes of game play without using any additional resources from the game. By pressing the Share button you can then upload or save your gameplay, show your friends or keep it just for your own amusement.

Colours

The PS4's DualShock 4 controller will be available from launch in Black, Red and Blue.

You can lay the PS4 flat or use the bundled stand to prop it up

DualShock 4 lightbar

The DualShock 4 controller, you will notice, carries a Move-like glowing light bar. This makes it possible for the PlayStation Camera to track the controller's position. This, it has been revealed, is a permanent fixture and cannot be turned off, so if you don't like controller-sourced mood lighting, think about getting a third party pad.

PS4 Streaming

PS4 streaming lets you stream out live gameplay to your friends. This is all built into the hardware and does not need to be supported by developers. Users can react to the video by typing comments in real time. You can do this to friends, or public.

PS4 user interface

The XrossMediaBar (XMB) interface of PlayStations past has beencompletely ditched in the PS4, with Sony instead choosing to design a new OS that looks a lot more like that of the Xbox 360 than the PS3.