Diving into the PlayStation 4’s hardware it becomes immediately clear that Sony is trying as hard as it can to have a smooth ride next generation. Its CPU and GPU far surpass its console competition, and its high-quality GDDR5 memory makes the difference even more dramatic. Sony knows it has something special with the PS4 and has earned the right to boast about it.
Sony VP and managing director Fergal Gara described the PS4 as the following to Techradar:
But secondly to design a piece of technology like that it’s very easy to deliver one or the other, in particular I’m talking about the price and the performance trade off. It’s very hard to deliver both and for me the balance that’s been delivered across those two is outstanding. So it’s great to be going to market with what we believe is the most powerful gaming device ever conceived and certainly ever developed and at a price that feels very acceptable, certainly based on the pre-order volumes that we’re seeing.
As if that weren’t enough, the hardware is streamlined for developers with X86 architecture that channels unified memory, all for the price of $399 U.S.
As dominant as the PS4 already sounds, the best hardware doesn’t always win the generation. Actually, that’s almost never the case. The Nintendo 64 had more powerful (and quite different) hardware than the PlayStation 1 but was outsold 3:1. Similar results affected the two following generations. Sony pushed hard to make the PlayStation 3 as powerful as possible but ended up struggling while Nintendo’s Wii became the must-have device of many families around the world.
The PS4 has a hardware lead that can’t be ignored, but the generation hasn’t even begun. We’ll soon learn what all this means when the PS4 and Xbox One initiate battle during the 2013 holiday season.
