PlayStation 4

Lore & Background

According to lead architect Mark Cerny, development of Sony's fourth video game console began as early as 2008. Sony worked with software developer Bungie on the controller. In 2012, Sony began shipping development kits to game developers, consisting of a modified PC running the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit chipset. The console was officially announced at PlayStation Meeting 2013 in New York City on February 20, 2013. The design was unveiled at E3 2013, with initial recommended retail prices of $399 (NA), €399 (Europe), and £349 (UK). Sony finalized a deal with the Chinese government in May 2014 to sell its products in mainland China, and the PS4 was the first product to be released. In September 2015, Sony reduced the price of the PS4 in Japan to ¥34,980. On October 9, 2015, the first official price cut in North America was announced: a reduction of $50 to $349.99 (US) and by $20 to $429.99 (Canada). On June 10, 2016, Sony confirmed a hardware revision codenamed 'Neo' was under development, later revealed as PlayStation 4 Pro on September 7, 2016, alongside an updated smaller version of the original model. In May 2018, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO John Kodera stated the PS4 was heading into the end of its lifecycle. Following the launch of the PlayStation 5 in November 2020, Sony discontinued production in Japan of all but the 500 GB Slim model on January 5, 2021, with standard PS4 and PS4 Pro still produced for western markets. Due to a global chip shortage, Sony planned to continue PS4 production into 2022.

Reader's Guide

The PlayStation 4 uses an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) developed by AMD. It combines a CPU consisting of two 28 nm quad-core Jaguar modules totaling 8 64-bit x86-64 cores (7 available for game developers) and a GPU with 18 compute units producing a theoretical peak performance of 1.84 TFLOPS. The system has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory with a maximum clock frequency of 2.75 GHz and maximum memory bandwidth of 176 GB/s. The console features an increased emphasis on social interaction, including Remote Play on PlayStation Vita and other supported devices, and Share Play for streaming gameplay. The controller was redesigned with updated buttons, analog sticks, and an integrated touchpad. The console supports HDR10 high-dynamic-range video and playback of 4K resolution multimedia. The PlayStation 4 Pro features an upgraded GPU and higher CPU clock rate to support enhanced performance and 4K resolution in supported games.

Did You Know?

• By October 2019, PS4 had become the second best-selling PlayStation console of all time, behind the PlayStation 2.
• The console's development kits were known as 'Orbis'.
• Sony took advantage of problems Microsoft had with the Xbox One, including its higher price point ($499 in North America) and strict regulations on sharing game media.