After months and years of rumors, the PlayStation 4 has finally been revealed. It'll be out this holiday season.
Sony announced the new machine at a two-hour presentation in New York City, during which the Japanese hardware maker showed off a whole bunch of gorgeous games and sizzling demos for the next PlayStation—their first home gaming console since the PS3 in late 2006. But there's still a lot left unsaid: we don't know what the hardware looks like, how much it will cost, or how many of its online functions will work.
We did get to see the PS4's controller, which has a few fascinating new features, like a Share button that lets you put videos and screenshots of your games online.
Veteran designer Mark Cerny was the first to take to the stage and speak about the next PlayStation.
"It is a powerful and accessible system," he said. "And it has a deep feature set to support the ongoing evolution of gaming itself."
The PS4 has 8 gigabytes of RAM and comes with a "massive" hard drive, Cerny said.
The controller looks exactly like the prototype we've been showing you here on Kotaku. It has "share" and "options" buttons as well as a touchpad in the center.
You can suspend/resume the system instantly by pressing the power button. A secondary custom chip will handle downloads and uploads so you can get games onto your console even when it's turned off. You can also play games while they're being downloaded, Cerny said.
You can also stream gameplay footage and "spectate"—that is, watch other people play games—on the new machine. (As we reported last night.)
You'll also be able to play PS4 games on your Vita with a functionality they're calling "remote play." Sony says the goal is to make every single PS4 game playable on their handheld as well.
A reel of developers including Double Fine's Tim Schafer, Harmonix's Alex Rigopulos, and Ninja Theory's Tameem Antoniades all spoke about the pros of the new console, though none shared specifics about projects they were working on.
Games announced at the show included Knack and Killzone: Shadow Fall, as well as Driveclub, Infamous: Second Son, and Deep Down.
Some other highlights: Diablo 3 is coming to PS4 and PS3, The Witness will be debuting on PS4, and a new PS4 Final Fantasy will be shown off at this year's E3.
Sony also confirmed what we all knew already: both Bungie's Destiny and Ubisoft's Watch Dogs are indeed next-gen games.
Some other tidbits:
• Sony has released a list of full specs for the controller and camera.
• The PS4 can stream PS1, PS2, and PS3 games.
• The PS4 won't require you to be online to use it.