The PlayStation 4 - Page 13

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Microsoft has swung open the gates to indie developers by making the Xbox One a development kit in its own right. But how much does it cost to start creating indie games for Sony's rival PlayStation 4?

Polygon spoke to various development sources who say that the PlayStation 4 dev kit costs about $2,500, which is $2,000 more than an Xbox One. Indie Xbox One developers will also pay a fee to Microsoft, which a source said is a few hundred dollars. Microsoft declined to talk publicly about the fee.

Although this $2,500 price is being cited in development circles, the game-makers we spoke to all said that Sony had lent them dev kits for a limited period of one year, for free. As of right now, there are no dev kits being sold. Sony is sending whatever it has available to favored developers. "All the indies I know got them for free," said one developer. "Sony has been amazing about kits and development thus far."

Another developer said that Sony is focused on loaners, rather than collecting fees. "They are handing them out like candy," he said.

"Self-publishing has been available on PlayStation platforms for over five years, so it's nothing new," said a spokesperson for Sony. "The process of devs bringing their games to market has continued to evolve, and PlayStation has led the charge in adapting and embracing new publishing rules to allow for more creative freedom for developers."

On July 24 2013 15:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Uh did anyone just get an email from Amazon?



Still says Dec 31, 2013 though. Weird.

PlayStation 4 reserves 3.5GB of its 8GB GDDR5 memory for the operating system, leaving 4.5GB of space for game code, according to current PlayStation 4 documentation shown to Digital Foundry by a well-placed development source. However, further sources suggest that an additional 1GB of "flexible memory" may be reclaimed from the OS reservation, based on availability.

Sony's internal docs say that 4.5GB is the baseline amount of guaranteed memory available for game-makers (note the memory usage of the Killzone: Shadow Fall demo) and most likely what the lion's share of launch titles will be using. However, other sources close to Sony indicate that developers can request up to an additional gigabyte of "flexible memory", and use it to boost elements of the game - but only if the background OS can spare it. We're told that incorporating this isn't trivial, and it may well be that to begin with only first-party developers target its usage.

Current PlayStation 4 dev kits have a "Game Memory Budget Mode" in the debug settings featuring two options: normal and large. The normal mode setting confirms that 4.5GB of memory is usable for game applications. The large mode increases this considerably to 5.25GB, but the docs are clear that the extra RAM here is only available for application development, presumably in order to house debugging data. From what we understand, the extra gig of flexible memory appears to work in addition to these allowances.

After we learned that Xbox Live Gold will be necessary to record and stream video of games on the upcoming Xbox One, many wondered if Sony Computer Entertainment would pull the same stunt with the similar feature on the PS4.

Since Shuhei Yoshida is well known for running an alternative “customer service” on Twitter, by his own admission, many took to the social networking site to ask him the burning question, quite a few times. Luckily the answer is no. Yoshida-san confirmed that the recording and streaming feature will be accessible to everyone, regardless of their PlayStation Plus subscription status.

On August 10 2013 13:16 woody60707 wrote:
I am in love with the WiiU's game-pad. So I love this remote play with vita. But the WiiU has spoiled i fear. So I am worried about play a FPS game with the vita because of lag and stuff. Also the screen just doesn't look as big

On August 10 2013 12:58 LoLAdriankat wrote:
I never do, but we've been stuck on this gen for so long that I'm actually tempted to get it on launch.

This holiday, DICE will unwrap the next generation of all-out warfare with Battlefield 4. That means best-in-class multiplayer is coming to PlayStation 4 with huge 64-player battles running at a smooth 60 frames-per-second.

Even if you start playing on PlayStation 3, we want to make your transition to PlayStation 4 easy. That’s why we’re notifying the devoted Battlefield and PlayStation communities that all of the time and effort you spend building up your Battlefield 4 stats will carry over when you upgrade to PlayStation 4.

That way, on 1st November, you can get in the game without any worries that you’ll have to start ranking up all over again when PlayStation 4 launches. We got your back.

Sony has reportedly reached a preliminary deal with Viacom to bring its cable channels to a new internet TV service its working to launch before the end of the year. According to The Wall Street Journal, the licensing deal would give Sony access to some of the most popular cable TV channels available — Comedy Central, MTV, BET, CMT, VH1, Nickelodeon, and Spike. Sony's planned service would pit the entertainment and consumer tech giant squarely against cable TV providers, as well Intel and Google, who are racing to build out internet TV services of their own.

Sony's plan is to offer an internet TV service that streams channels that are traditionally only available through cable and satellite TV providers, as well as on-demand shows and movies, the Journal report said. Sony currently offers some TV shows and films on-demand through its PlayStation gaming console. According to the report, the internet TV service could make its debut on a PlayStation — the new PlayStation 4 will be on sale before the end of the year — and the Sony's Bravia line of TVs. "People who have seen demonstrations" of Sony's TV service told the Journal that it will make recommendations based on what shows and movies subscribers have watched.

We'll kick off the show at 18:00 BST on 20 August 2013 with a briefing to media on our release plans for PlayStation 4, as well as updates on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.

On Tuesday 20th August – the evening before the doors open – we’ll be holding our regular Gamescom press conference, where we’ll be showcasing the future of all things PlayStation. The show will be packed with news on both announced and unannounced titles – suffice to say, you won’t want to miss it.

In the console war, the Xbox One is the box with major TV offerings alongside its gaming functions. Or, at least, it was. Sony has reached a landmark deal to stream Viacom VIAB channels via an Internet TV service, and, one assumes, the company’s soon to be released Playstation 4, according a report from the Wall Street Journal verified by the New York Times.

This deal has much larger implications beyond just the fight between Xbox and Playstation. Even as more customers watch television over internet streams, cable and dish companies maintain a powerful content lock. All the major tech companies are looking for a way into the living room, but those gatekeepers have a lot of sway. This could be the first direct deal between one of those tech companies and a content provider, and it means that people using Sony’s service would be able to stream channels like Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central the same way they already stream Netflix. It could also signal the start of a major shift within the content industry.