Sony Launches 8-Generation Playstation 4 Gaming Console
A Sony Playstation console is displayed at an electronics shop in TokyoReuters

Japanese electronics major Sony on Wednesday launched the much-awaited PS 4 gaming console at the 'PlayStation Meeting 2013' event in New York City.

With the announcement of the PlayStation 4, Sony gets a head start over its rival Microsoft Xbox which is speculated to launch its next generation console 'Xbox 720'(code-named Durango) at the upcoming international gaming convention E3(Electronic Entertainment Expo) 2013 in June.

Sony's new video game console boasts an improved Dual-Shock 4 controller, endowed with new additional features such as:

  • A built-in touch-sensitive pad in the front.
  • Another addition to the controller is the 'Share' button which allows users to directly upload videos from their game experiences to the net.
  • The new Dual Shock 4 controller is ergonomically designed with curved L2 and R2 buttons to give greater control.
  • A new LED light bar is embedded in to the controller; it will be used to communicate to the external camera-attachment to track player's movements for creating 3D version of the player on the screen for motion-sensing games.

Other Key features of Sony PlayStation 4 Include:

Model

Sony PlayStation 4

Console generation

8

Processor

AMD 'Jaguar' 8-core x86-64 Central Processing

Unit

GPU

Custom AMD Radeon Graphics

Engine

Memory

8GB GDDR5 unified memory, allows 176GB

per second

Bandwidth.

Input

Dual-Shock 4 controller with touch-sensitive pad,

External camera and a motion sensing

device PlayStation Move

Connectivity

Wi-Fi(802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth v2.1, USB v3.0

ROM(Read Only Memory)

Optical Drive

Reads only Blu-ray discs and DVDs

Sony said the its flagship handheld gaming console PlayStation Vita will be used as a companion device to the PS4. The company also promised to add more PS4 gaming titles for PS Vita.

The PS4 maker also announced a new cloud based-service that allows consumers to purchase new games titles online and the service will also offer live online gaming with other players across the world.

Several high-profile gaming titles such as Destiny, Diablo-III, Infamous: Second Son, Killzone: Shadow Fall, The Witness, Watch Dogs, Final Fantasy (TBA), Drive Club and others ... are slated to release for the PS4 gaming console.

Sony said that the new eighth-generation gaming console will reach markets in the 2013 holiday season. But the company has chosen to remain silent on the console's pricing details.