Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Looks dot Com, Game on, Ladies and gentlemen, and
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm johnsan Strickland, Gamer extraordinaire, and
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vocal Bam. I'm I'm gaming adjacent. Okay, that's fair. Uh,
Speaker 1: And today we wanted to talk about something that was
Speaker 1: announced on February, something that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: anticipation built around this Sony's next PlayStation, which will be
Speaker 1: the PlayStation four. Right, there was the code name Orbis Orbis,
Speaker 1: which went well with the Vita Orbis Vita. You start
Speaker 1: getting into this, that's really clever. But no, No, the
Speaker 1: official name is the PS four. They decided to stick
Speaker 1: with that. I mean, when you've established a brand, it
Speaker 1: makes sense to kind of uh maintain that and not
Speaker 1: leap away from it, right, especially yeah, if you're not
Speaker 1: doing any I mean it's certainly this looks like it's
Speaker 1: going to be a huge advancement, advancement over the PS three,
Speaker 1: but not in such a wacky direction that it would
Speaker 1: require an entirely new name. Yeah. Yeah, In fact, I
Speaker 1: read this is so funny to me before we get
Speaker 1: into this, I remember reading something one of the articles
Speaker 1: I read started off with, you know, the games for
Speaker 1: the p S three and for Xbox three sixty you're
Speaker 1: still going on strong, So you might gamers might wonder,
Speaker 1: why do we even need a new console? And like, really,
Speaker 1: do you know any gamers? And every gamer I know
Speaker 1: is like, give me new console. Yeah. Basically, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's having the newest, fastest, shiniest hardware
Speaker 1: and software is basically what the gaming industry is built on.
Speaker 1: Now that being said, there are some things about the
Speaker 1: specifications about the PS four that that confused me a
Speaker 1: little bit, because you've got to keep in mind Sony
Speaker 1: originally said that the idea for the p S three
Speaker 1: was for it to have a ten year lifespan, and
Speaker 1: and to be fair, I'm sure how long seven seven years?
Speaker 1: But then, to be fair, I think that just like
Speaker 1: the PS two before it, we won't see development for
Speaker 1: the PS three completely stop once the PS four launches.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be some overlap there um. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have that same thought process with
Speaker 1: the PS four, and I'm not saying Sony does, I
Speaker 1: don't know what Sony's long term strategy is. You're not psychic.
Speaker 1: You don't have a mental connection. I don't have a
Speaker 1: phone number that I can call and get confirmation on.
Speaker 1: But you know, we don't know how long the lifespan
Speaker 1: for the PS four is planned to be. Within Sony,
Speaker 1: I'm imagining it's going to be similar. That's supposed to
Speaker 1: be ten years. But with that in mind, some of
Speaker 1: the decisions they made with their specifications confused me a bit.
Speaker 1: So first we should probably talk a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do that thing that you said. So one of
Speaker 1: the big announcements was that they're switching their microprocessor architecture. Uh.
Speaker 1: You may remember the PlayStation three. One of the big
Speaker 1: big things about it was that was had had this
Speaker 1: cell microprocessor architecture that's Sony developed, and tell us what
Speaker 1: that is. So it's it's essentially, without getting into all
Speaker 1: the details, it's essentially a supercomputer in a console format.
Speaker 1: It's a microprocessor where you've got this cell structure that
Speaker 1: allows you to tap into a lot of computing power
Speaker 1: and it's in this particular architecture that allows that to happen.
Speaker 1: But it's so different from other microprocessor architectures that developing
Speaker 1: software for this, you know, essentially games some software we're
Speaker 1: talking about, But developing games for this platform was a
Speaker 1: bit of a challenge because you had to learn how
Speaker 1: to how to do it. Yeah, you had to learn,
Speaker 1: like how do I tap into this massive resource? And
Speaker 1: we saw the same thing with other console platforms, right,
Speaker 1: you know when it first launches, the games that come
Speaker 1: out are good, but they're not They don't blow your
Speaker 1: mind necessarily, Like if you were if you were able
Speaker 1: to jump ahead in time five years and see the
Speaker 1: average game on the market five years from launch, you'd think, Wow,
Speaker 1: you're not even touching the potential that this game console has. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was particularly true with the PlayStation three because the
Speaker 1: architecture was so different from the other UH consoles and
Speaker 1: computers on the market that it was a barrier to
Speaker 1: entry for a lot of game developers, and certainly they
Speaker 1: had to pour money and time to learn how to
Speaker 1: do this. So the question came up, do we develop
Speaker 1: from the PlayStation UH spending that kind of time and
Speaker 1: resources that we need in order to create a game,
Speaker 1: or do we or do we stick with something that
Speaker 1: we knew? Yeah, I mean it's hard to hard to
Speaker 1: answer that question because you could just say just stick
Speaker 1: with what you know, and that way you save money.
Speaker 1: But but you're not catering to the PlayStation audience. And
Speaker 1: there's there's a sizeable one which actually, Jonathan and I
Speaker 1: a full disclosure, are not necessarily a part of I
Speaker 1: do not own a PS three, Jonathan, you do. I
Speaker 1: own a PS three, and I have two whole games
Speaker 1: for it. Those two games are Here's a War two,
Speaker 1: uh and Uncharted two. Those are my two games. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I own a p S three, but I own it
Speaker 1: mainly as a Blu ray player, right right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a PS two and I and I went over
Speaker 1: to Xbox three sixty and I never bothered picking up
Speaker 1: a PS three. Right now. That's not to say that
Speaker 1: the PlayStation is a bad console, certainly not now. It's
Speaker 1: it's really I mean, it really does that sell architecture.
Speaker 1: If you knew how to take advantage of it, you
Speaker 1: could do incredible things. In fact, potentially you could run
Speaker 1: a game that's far more sophisticated than you could on
Speaker 1: an Xbox three sixty because the hardware and the three
Speaker 1: sixty uh, if you're talking about pure processing power did
Speaker 1: not quite match up to the PlayStation. The problem was
Speaker 1: that very few game developers out there really knew how
Speaker 1: to take advantage of that hardware. So that brings us
Speaker 1: to the new PS for architecture. They've actually gone to
Speaker 1: the X eight six sixty four a m D Jaguar
Speaker 1: eight core CPU, and this is more in line with
Speaker 1: what you would find in a PC, so it's something
Speaker 1: that developers are already familiar with, right sure. And and
Speaker 1: this is a semi custom thing that they're doing with
Speaker 1: a m D. It's it's got all the Chinese stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, eight eight gigabytes of RAM. Yeah, that's that's huge.
Speaker 1: Eight gigabytes of RAM is huge for gaming. That's very
Speaker 1: that was one of the most exciting announcements. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: it's got a graphics engine that's going to be running
Speaker 1: one point eight for Tara flop. Yeah, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: a lot of floating operations per second. Yeah, and that's uh.
Speaker 1: It's got a a GPU Graphics Pressing Setting Unit RADION
Speaker 1: GPU that's located on the same die as the CPU,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of important because the CPU and GPU
Speaker 1: by being close together, means that data transfers can happen
Speaker 1: very quickly. They don't have to travel across a chip.
Speaker 1: That kind of sounds crazy when you think about it.
Speaker 1: That you know, we're talking super speeds already, but in gaming,
Speaker 1: any sort of latency is a problem. Latency, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and gamers have no patience for that. I mean, whenever
Speaker 1: I have to like look at a pause screen or
Speaker 1: a load screen for even a quarter of a second,
Speaker 1: I'm instantly irritated. Right. And and if you were to
Speaker 1: do something like play a game and you press the
Speaker 1: jump button but your character doesn't jump until an instant later,
Speaker 1: that's that's horrible, right, That's that's like the kind of
Speaker 1: latency that drives gamers crazy. And we'll get into more
Speaker 1: latency issues in a second, but go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say. What they have was gonna have
Speaker 1: an onboard hard drive, so it's going to be important.
Speaker 1: We're not sure what size that's hard drives are going
Speaker 1: to be yet, they have they talked about it. I
Speaker 1: haven't mentioned, but we do imagine. I mean, I imagine
Speaker 1: they have to be pretty big, because it sounds to
Speaker 1: me like a lot of the movement on Sony's part
Speaker 1: is to the cloud and to pull games from the
Speaker 1: cloud onto your console, which means that you would not
Speaker 1: necessarily go and buy a disk. You might buy it
Speaker 1: directly off the network and store it natively on your machine,
Speaker 1: which means the hard drive needs to be sizeable to
Speaker 1: accommodate that. I think a lot of it. I think
Speaker 1: they're also planning on playing a lot with all of
Speaker 1: that ram um, because they're they're talking about doing a
Speaker 1: lot of things that yeah, just just are going to
Speaker 1: be instantaneous and so stored all in the right in
Speaker 1: the random axis memory. Sure. And then they're also supports
Speaker 1: the USB three point oh, which is nice because that's
Speaker 1: the that's of course a faster protocol than the two
Speaker 1: point oh that most of us are still stuck with.
Speaker 1: I know, I don't have a computer yet that has
Speaker 1: the USB three point capability. Yeah. Yeah, all of this
Speaker 1: is so so interesting to me because these specs are
Speaker 1: for a really decently mid grade gaming computer and which
Speaker 1: would cost you a couple of thousand dollars. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you've got Bluetooth two point one that I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting because we're up to Bluetooth four now.
Speaker 1: But but but then it all depends on what you
Speaker 1: need the Bluetooth to do. Right, If it's something where
Speaker 1: it's just the the communication between the controller and the
Speaker 1: base unit then doesn't necessarily need Bluetooth four point oh,
Speaker 1: which is really more about low power features that wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily be a good match with the Bluetooth two point
Speaker 1: one protocols. I mean, you don't necessarily need that. If
Speaker 1: you're if your controller is working above that threshold, low
Speaker 1: power doesn't really matter. Um. On top of that, it's
Speaker 1: gonna have gigabit Ethernet, no big surprise. There also supports WiFi.
Speaker 1: Uh that blue ray and DVD YEP, blue ray and
Speaker 1: DVD player, So that way, that's that's not going away,
Speaker 1: which is good. I'm sure that makes all the movie
Speaker 1: studio is happy because producing blue rays is still one
Speaker 1: of those very profitable markets. And then you have HD
Speaker 1: m I out as as well as analog video digital
Speaker 1: optical audio hypothetically some I have four K output for
Speaker 1: a photo and video viewing right games. See, I was
Speaker 1: really surprised about the four K not being used for
Speaker 1: video games. I just think that if you're building out
Speaker 1: a concert old that needs to have a relevant lifespan
Speaker 1: of ten years and four case something that's right around
Speaker 1: the corner, then really I don't why wouldn't you build
Speaker 1: the four K capability for the video games as well
Speaker 1: as for the photos and the videos. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: more complicated than that, but I mean, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: only see it was some kind of programming related issue
Speaker 1: that they perhaps didn't think that game studios would be
Speaker 1: able to get into it, or could have been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that must have been, or it may have been that
Speaker 1: it would have required games to be so large, has
Speaker 1: to be larger than what the console could easily because
Speaker 1: I mean, four K that's a lot of information. You're
Speaker 1: really talking about a ton of it. But I went
Speaker 1: to CE I saw four K TVs everywhere you can.
Speaker 1: It seems like the big buzz word. Yeah, you couldn't
Speaker 1: throw a rock without hitting one, and uh, don't do
Speaker 1: that because those are expensive. We're talking like tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars in some cases. So I'm important in
Speaker 1: thanks to Clinton. Yeah you're welcome, and that's a little
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters documentary moment there um. But yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was something that I found confused using was if it's
Speaker 1: really forward thinking, huh, I can't believe I use that phrase. Uh,
Speaker 1: game system, then it needs to it needs to have
Speaker 1: these future proofing aspects in it. Another element that the
Speaker 1: PS four has is the PlayStation four Eye Camera, which
Speaker 1: is kind of basically a connect Yeah, I'm sure Sony
Speaker 1: would hate us to say that, but it kind of is.
Speaker 1: It's sorry, sorry, it's a base units. It's there around
Speaker 1: your television. It's got stereoscopic cameras in it to two cameras.
Speaker 1: It's kind of this bar shape and it works with
Speaker 1: both the PlayStation Move controller which is still compatible which
Speaker 1: for yeah, and it's of course it's already out for
Speaker 1: the PS three, but it will work with the PS four,
Speaker 1: not like the dual Shock three controller. But anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: because because the dual Shock four controller that they are
Speaker 1: premiering with the PS four is going to be motion capable, right,
Speaker 1: so it will also work with this eye camera. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's going to be able to The eye camera will
Speaker 1: capture up to eighty pixel video at thirty frames per second.
Speaker 1: So it's got an eighty five degree diagonal viewing angle,
Speaker 1: which means that you know, it's going to capture most
Speaker 1: of the room that's pointed toward. It has four integrated microphones,
Speaker 1: which is important because those microphones, what does it allows
Speaker 1: me to pick up voice commands, but cancel out other
Speaker 1: noise so it doesn't mistake something for a voice command
Speaker 1: when it should be. Right. Yeah, my my connection does
Speaker 1: that more or less continually, so that can be fun. Right.
Speaker 1: And it also is going to work with facial recognition
Speaker 1: software so that you can log into your account based
Speaker 1: upon your mug. That's super creepy. Excellent. But that leads
Speaker 1: us into the duel Shock for a controller. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're premarying the duel Shock three, like we just said,
Speaker 1: is not going to be supported for the PS four
Speaker 1: because they're so excited about this duel Shock for it's
Speaker 1: going to have a touch panel, right, So the touch
Speaker 1: panel on the duel Shock four, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: touch screen interface. It if you're looking at the controller
Speaker 1: like from a top down view, and you know the
Speaker 1: thumbsticks are pointing towards your eyeballs, This is towards the
Speaker 1: top of this particular controller, and and those touch screen
Speaker 1: commands will allow you to do special things in the games,
Speaker 1: but that that will all depend upon how the game
Speaker 1: developers incorporate the touch screen interface, right. I haven't I
Speaker 1: haven't heard any specific things about any game developers planning
Speaker 1: on using it, but I'm sure that they will come
Speaker 1: up with delightful ways to do that. It's going to
Speaker 1: have a new share button, which we will talk about
Speaker 1: in a moment um, a light bar to interact with
Speaker 1: the eye yep. So that way you can use kind
Speaker 1: of it's kind of like using your dual Schuck for
Speaker 1: like a PlayStation move controller. Uh. It also it's going
Speaker 1: to have a headphone jack so you can there's it's
Speaker 1: got a speaker in it so it will play sound
Speaker 1: effects out of the actual controllers. So you plug the
Speaker 1: headphone jack in. That allows you to have the headset miked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can be miked, and you can also hear special
Speaker 1: sound effects that come straight through the controller to your ears. Uh.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's also got a camera on it. It
Speaker 1: can sense the depth in front of it. Wow. I
Speaker 1: actually hadn't read about that. That is yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: well I guess I guess that goes with the with
Speaker 1: the move related with the I relate exactly. It's it's
Speaker 1: to get as much information as possible so that when
Speaker 1: I mean really the idea is just to give all
Speaker 1: of these specs out to developers so that they can
Speaker 1: find interesting ways to incorporate these abilities into the games.
Speaker 1: So I could say, yes, it's so you can blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, but I really don't know because I don't
Speaker 1: know what how game developers are going to take advantage
Speaker 1: of this. Yes, we we are not game developers. You
Speaker 1: can charge it even when you're PS four is on
Speaker 1: standby mode. Yeah, it's It's battery is a is a
Speaker 1: latium ion that is non removable, which is just like
Speaker 1: the dual Shock three, but unlike the Duel Shock three,
Speaker 1: if you don't have like the dual Shock three, you
Speaker 1: had to have the PS three on an active mode
Speaker 1: to charge it. This one you can be in standby
Speaker 1: mode and you can still charge. Also, you'll be able
Speaker 1: to charge it through mic USB. Uh. And it has
Speaker 1: enhanced rumble. Enhanced rumble. Yeah, I don't know what that
Speaker 1: means unless it just means it. Yes, maybe it's like
Speaker 1: the I T Crowd where they felt that the rumble
Speaker 1: in the Duel Shock three was a little a little
Speaker 1: ready and it needed to be boosted. I can't quote
Speaker 1: any more of that episode. No, there's probably nothing else
Speaker 1: in that. But it's fantastic. It is. It's a terrific documentary.
Speaker 1: You guys should check it out. Yeah. Uh So, anyway,
Speaker 1: these are the basic spects of the PS four. It's
Speaker 1: really just part of their their presentation, which by the way,
Speaker 1: was a two hour presentation. Yeah. I got there about
Speaker 1: an hour and a half of it. I mean it
Speaker 1: was actually it was actually fascinating. I really enjoyed how
Speaker 1: excited and and nerdy and wonderfully awkward a lot of
Speaker 1: the people on stage where I and I say that
Speaker 1: very genuinely. I thought it was very charming. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and also I should point out before we take a
Speaker 1: quick break that it was interesting and totally understandable that
Speaker 1: Sony decided to do a standalone press event to announce this. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was interesting in the sense that they didn't go
Speaker 1: with something like E three or the Game Developers Conference,
Speaker 1: and it meant that they had the stage all to themselves.
Speaker 1: They were not competing with any other companies, so they
Speaker 1: didn't have to worry about the fact that as soon
Speaker 1: as this press conference is over, everyone's going to rush
Speaker 1: out and go across the hall to get to the
Speaker 1: Microsoft conference with to show conference. So that was a
Speaker 1: big advantage. It was kind of interesting to see the
Speaker 1: stuff they did not do. Uh. They said that it
Speaker 1: was a way for them to draw out the announcement
Speaker 1: over the course of Uh so, for example, they didn't
Speaker 1: actually show the console. They showed off the controller, the
Speaker 1: dual Shock four hounch Yeah, but but we haven't actually
Speaker 1: seen the box yet and and that's you know, and
Speaker 1: to be fair, I would say that that probably the
Speaker 1: least important things surrounding a new console is what it
Speaker 1: looks like. I mean, I mean, it's it's nice, you know,
Speaker 1: especially as as a journalist in a web journalist, I
Speaker 1: understand the irritation of not having a shiny picture of
Speaker 1: something that you can show around right right and it
Speaker 1: and it raises suspicions. It always does, Like if you
Speaker 1: don't actually have a product to show, then people are like,
Speaker 1: are you do you really have something you're going to
Speaker 1: launch in holiday season? Or you just reink in our chain?
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, I'm pretty sure Sony's on the
Speaker 1: up and up on this. Yeah. But they had they
Speaker 1: had live demos of the of the software, but just
Speaker 1: just because they didn't have a shiny package to present,
Speaker 1: and that could be that they're still finalizing the design
Speaker 1: or maybe they don't have Maybe they had like a
Speaker 1: working uh PS four, But it's not in the final case,
Speaker 1: you know. That's what they said. They said that they're
Speaker 1: still working on it, and and I believe them. I
Speaker 1: take people at their word. I'm okay with it too.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people got up in arms
Speaker 1: about it. But the more I thought about, the more
Speaker 1: I was like, the only time I ever look at
Speaker 1: my console is when I'm actually changing a disk out.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'm looking at the controller or the screen. I'm
Speaker 1: not looking at the actual box. It's not like a
Speaker 1: cell phone or something that you're interacting with. Contin Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor before
Speaker 1: we continue on with the PS four and now back
Speaker 1: to the show. Alright, So we talked about the specs.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the features besides, you know,
Speaker 1: things that aren't aren't just about you know, the hardware,
Speaker 1: but some of the things that we can actually expect
Speaker 1: from this PS four. A lot of that comes to
Speaker 1: us courtesy of the cloud. Yeah. Yeah. They were talking
Speaker 1: all kinds about about streaming games and pre little previews
Speaker 1: and and fancy shiny things that smart browsing stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: the kind of the concept that that this machine is
Speaker 1: going to learn what kind of games you like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that to me was really interesting the idea that
Speaker 1: and they very briefly touched on this, so we don't
Speaker 1: have all the info, but it did sound like the
Speaker 1: PS four will start to learn about your preferences based
Speaker 1: upon the way you use the PS four and that
Speaker 1: it will start to prioritize things and maybe even uh
Speaker 1: download stuff in advance for you because it already quote
Speaker 1: unquote knows that you're going to like that and and
Speaker 1: perhaps you know, won't you know? For for example, for me,
Speaker 1: every time I get on my Xbox and ad for
Speaker 1: for a Madden game, I'm like, why is it showing
Speaker 1: this to me? I could not care about this. Any
Speaker 1: less targeted advertising would be more effective. Absolutely, yes, that
Speaker 1: is that is what I am say. If it had
Speaker 1: my little Pony friendship is magic uh RPG that you'd
Speaker 1: be all over right on top of it. Wow. I
Speaker 1: have never seen someone want to kick me so much
Speaker 1: in such a short amount of time. Uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: they're they're partnering. Actually then partner they acquired a million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's that's the kind of partnership holing money can buy.
Speaker 1: Guy Kai and this is a service that's all about
Speaker 1: streaming content and particularly about games. So there there was
Speaker 1: some discussion about how the relationship between guy Kai and
Speaker 1: Sony would would would develop with the PS four. One
Speaker 1: of those things was all about the backwards compatibility issue,
Speaker 1: because Sony has said the PS four is not backwards compatible.
Speaker 1: You will not be able to play PS one, PS two,
Speaker 1: or p S three games on the PS four with
Speaker 1: the possible exception, and they only said possible that you
Speaker 1: might be able to stream those games using a guy
Speaker 1: Kai service on the line, so you would be able
Speaker 1: to stream a version of a PS three game onto
Speaker 1: your PS four. Yeah, they're they're they're talking about basically
Speaker 1: um supporting or emulating games, and and that they're not
Speaker 1: sure whether they They basically said that they have the
Speaker 1: capacity and they don't know if they're going to do
Speaker 1: it yet, right right, which which I thought was a
Speaker 1: really interesting kick in the pans. Yeah, No, that's that's
Speaker 1: a tough response, right. They said, it's possible, we just
Speaker 1: don't know if we're going to do it, and if
Speaker 1: they do it, we don't even know how that's going
Speaker 1: to manifest. So for example, how like you would probably
Speaker 1: end up having to purchase those games. Again, that's my
Speaker 1: guess because possibility, and I mean they have said that
Speaker 1: used games will be playable, but if they're only PS
Speaker 1: four games, then that's not gonna matter for another five
Speaker 1: years or two years. Anyway. There's actually some question about
Speaker 1: that too, about whether or not you needed to have
Speaker 1: a persistent Internet connection all the time. They didn't really
Speaker 1: touch on that, right there are there are a lot
Speaker 1: of rumors leading up to the PS four release about
Speaker 1: or not the release, but the the announcement that uh,
Speaker 1: that the PS four would require a persistent Internet connection
Speaker 1: and that you would have to register games when you
Speaker 1: bought them, and those games would be tied to you,
Speaker 1: which means that that would eliminate the used game market.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to sell that game because no
Speaker 1: one else could play it but you it was tied
Speaker 1: to you. Uh, they didn't really touch on that. That
Speaker 1: is still a possibility. We don't really know. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are hoping that's not
Speaker 1: the case. And by the way, and and just full disclosure,
Speaker 1: it sounds like that's going to be the same case
Speaker 1: for the Xbox. The next thing, This is not not
Speaker 1: not just a sony thing, I mean, only has its
Speaker 1: own reputation as far as dr M goes. Uh, like
Speaker 1: introducing back doors to your computer system so that hackers
Speaker 1: can get access to it just because you put a
Speaker 1: CD in there. But that's all in the past, silly
Speaker 1: billy um. Moving on to other other features besides this
Speaker 1: idea of streaming games, like kind of like uh, the
Speaker 1: the uh oh yeah, or other games systems out there
Speaker 1: that are all about streaming. Uh. It's interesting to me
Speaker 1: that they are building in the capability so that if
Speaker 1: you start to download a game, you purchase a game
Speaker 1: on the PlayStation network, you start to download it, and
Speaker 1: you can play it immediately, yes, you know, yeah while
Speaker 1: while the rest of it, because I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if a game is what twenty gigs these days or
Speaker 1: something like that, hopefully not that many, but yeah, you're
Speaker 1: you're talking about four or five gigs easy, and if
Speaker 1: you're talking if you're talking about a super advanced one,
Speaker 1: it may be upwards of ten for a really really
Speaker 1: big game. Yeah. But you know, as these things advance
Speaker 1: and we get you know, closer to to that's super
Speaker 1: high def kind of thing. Yeah, sure, yeah, they're gonna
Speaker 1: start getting huge and uh so so yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: and that is just tremendously exciting. As I said before,
Speaker 1: you know, gamers hate waiting for anything. Ever. We want,
Speaker 1: we want it now. That's one of the issues I
Speaker 1: have with my Xbox is that if I want to
Speaker 1: get some DLC, some downloadable content, then uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I start the download and I really can't do much
Speaker 1: else for fear of disturbing the great download flow and
Speaker 1: having to start all over again. And and I can
Speaker 1: take some time depending on how big the file is.
Speaker 1: But to have the ability to start launching into the
Speaker 1: game immediately while the game is downloading in the background,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, fantastic. Now. They also you mentioned the share
Speaker 1: button on the controller, which has something interesting in it.
Speaker 1: Social connectivity is going to be a really huge part
Speaker 1: of this console. They're um, they're talking about with this
Speaker 1: share button. You know, you know that wonderful moment that
Speaker 1: happens sometimes in a game, you do something so cool
Speaker 1: and you wish that your friend was sitting there with you.
Speaker 1: It's it's happened to me once, Yes, I remember, well
Speaker 1: there there's For some of you, it happens more frequently,
Speaker 1: I know, But for me once just the ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's okay, that's fair. Well for that one time, you
Speaker 1: could press this share button and and pretty pretty instantly apparently, uh,
Speaker 1: connect to to Facebook or another social media site and
Speaker 1: share the last little clip of video. Go in and
Speaker 1: select the little bit that you want to send and
Speaker 1: send it out. Yeah, you can even choose to live
Speaker 1: stream your video play through the PlayStation Social Network, and
Speaker 1: so other people with a PS four can can actually
Speaker 1: and maybe even PS three some of this might be
Speaker 1: accessible through the PS three network. You wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to necessarily do it on a p S three, but
Speaker 1: you might be able to watch this idea of streaming
Speaker 1: live the gameplay and you know what, it turn into
Speaker 1: backseat gaming kind of Yeah, as you're you're giving people
Speaker 1: the capacity to watch what you're doing in real time,
Speaker 1: talk to you about what you're doing, and possibly even
Speaker 1: jump in and help you out with a portion of
Speaker 1: a game that you're having trouble with. That kind of
Speaker 1: drives me nuts, but it does. It is kind of
Speaker 1: a throwback to the old arcade days. The idea that
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're sitting there and you're trying to
Speaker 1: get this crazy combo and you're working on it really hard,
Speaker 1: and the guy behind you is giving you hints and
Speaker 1: giving you tip and then eventually you're just like, I
Speaker 1: can't do this, and you hand it over to him
Speaker 1: many and it does his magic and then hands it
Speaker 1: right back to you and you take back over. It's
Speaker 1: like that, yeah, yeah, and then there's you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's a very natural way that I think of playing games. Certainly,
Speaker 1: you know in Silent Hill, when I'm playing something and
Speaker 1: I might be a better sharpshooter than than a person
Speaker 1: that I'm playing with, because I always play that in pairs,
Speaker 1: at least so that I don't end up a terrified
Speaker 1: ball in the corner shaking um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: some parts, some parts I might do, some parts they
Speaker 1: might do. It all kind of works out, and being
Speaker 1: able to do that over digital network sounds kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Like the Incredible Future, I think I would find it irritating,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure that's going to be one of those
Speaker 1: things where you hand control over to the other player,
Speaker 1: not that they take take control, because that would just
Speaker 1: be the bully in the room, like move. I could
Speaker 1: get past this part, move right, uh. But the the
Speaker 1: other part of this the whole live streaming thing. Uh
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years ago, I would have thought
Speaker 1: this was weird, the idea of watching people play games,
Speaker 1: but I have actually really enjoyed watching some There's some
Speaker 1: YouTube channels out there that are all about playing through
Speaker 1: certain games, and sometimes it's fun to watch people who
Speaker 1: are just really really good at a particular game and
Speaker 1: just see like how coordinated they are as they make
Speaker 1: their way through a level and they're they're all cooperatively
Speaker 1: playing this game, and and yeah, and you're and you're
Speaker 1: watching this and you're just saying, Wow, I'm terrible, or
Speaker 1: the flip side of that, as you can watch people
Speaker 1: who are just goofing around and being silly and making
Speaker 1: goofy remarks, like the Rooster Teeth people, the Achievement Hunter guys.
Speaker 1: They play they do Let's plays, and they're Let's plays
Speaker 1: are hilarious. They're not safe to watch at work because
Speaker 1: of the language, but they are really really funny. And
Speaker 1: so once I started to really get into that, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm saying I can understand why this live stream would
Speaker 1: be uh interesting to me. What was most interesting was
Speaker 1: how much they stressed this whole idea of sharing and
Speaker 1: social integration with the PlayStation network, because it is true.
Speaker 1: I mean you have online capability with the Xbox as
Speaker 1: well as with the PlayStation and with Xbox where you
Speaker 1: to really have access to anything of real value, you
Speaker 1: have to be on Xbox Live. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: be a subscriber. Like the free stuff is pretty limited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't even you can't even watch stuff on Netflix
Speaker 1: without being a subscribe, right, so you have to subscribe
Speaker 1: to two different services, right, you have to subscribe to
Speaker 1: Netflix and then you have to subscribe to Xbox Live.
Speaker 1: And the PlayStation network is free. Right. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: it just never really had the traction that Xbox Live had.
Speaker 1: I think it was the kind of games that the
Speaker 1: PlayStation was using it for. It never quite had the
Speaker 1: big titles like, for example, Halo. Yeah, the community just
Speaker 1: didn't grow the same way. Not not not that there
Speaker 1: aren't communities out there, as it just wasn't. It just
Speaker 1: never seemed to really catch on like Xbox Live dead. Now,
Speaker 1: this looks like this is a real move to change that,
Speaker 1: to make this a much more viable community. Now, how
Speaker 1: how many gamers are actually going to take advantage of that?
Speaker 1: That remains to be seen. Yeah, I'm really curious about
Speaker 1: about who who and how often people will be sharing
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, um other other exciting stuff. It
Speaker 1: is going to connect with the Vita. They are hoping
Speaker 1: to at some point have all developers for the PS
Speaker 1: four incorporate Vida and and and by by connect with
Speaker 1: the video, what I mean is that what they really
Speaker 1: want is to let you with any game, you know,
Speaker 1: like like you have to. The example that they gave
Speaker 1: is you're playing something and your kids come into the
Speaker 1: room and just absolutely take over everything. Uh, you just
Speaker 1: poured it to your Vita, walk out of the room,
Speaker 1: continue playing your game, and when you have a chance
Speaker 1: to come back and pick right back up where you
Speaker 1: were right so you can play seamlessly across both devices.
Speaker 1: So you can stop playing on the TV and switch
Speaker 1: it over to the Vida. And then once it's bedtime
Speaker 1: for the kids and they're they're out of the way,
Speaker 1: you go back to the TV and poured it back
Speaker 1: over and you just continue playing the whole time. You
Speaker 1: don't really have any interruption to play. This would be
Speaker 1: really cool for me whenever I get to a part
Speaker 1: where I don't want to quit but I have to
Speaker 1: save my game because my wife wants to watch the
Speaker 1: next episode of Supernatural. I know, I see that all
Speaker 1: the time. Your wife. You have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: their dreamy. Okay, they are dreamy, and I will watch
Speaker 1: another episode alright. Bad example. Let's say that my wife
Speaker 1: wants to watch something that I don't care about, then
Speaker 1: this would let me switch it over to the Vida
Speaker 1: and move on. This was kind of a fire across
Speaker 1: the bowl of Nintendo, which is the we you that
Speaker 1: has the built in uh that the controller with the
Speaker 1: built in screen. This is kind of uh a shot
Speaker 1: at them saying well, ours can play the same game
Speaker 1: and not just to say a mini game or something
Speaker 1: like right, so uh again, And that means that you
Speaker 1: have to buy two systems. You have to buy the
Speaker 1: p S four and the Vida to really take advantage
Speaker 1: of it. That it's pretty expensive, but it may very
Speaker 1: well end up being the winning strategy. Now, the Vita
Speaker 1: has not done so well. Like when I say so, well,
Speaker 1: it hasn't flown off store shelves in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like I mean I think that the ds uh
Speaker 1: uh whatever the new one is. I'm an excellent The
Speaker 1: three DS that one um I you know, I think
Speaker 1: that that has has enjoyed pretty serious popularity, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the Vida has maybe. Well, the three D s also
Speaker 1: started off really slowly, but once they once in Nintendo
Speaker 1: lowered its price, like within a couple of months of launch,
Speaker 1: they lowered the price dramatically, then it started to do
Speaker 1: much better. But yeah, the the Vida just it's had
Speaker 1: sort of a slow start in the United States particularly,
Speaker 1: but maybe with this interoperability with the PS four, we
Speaker 1: would see that increase, which I guess is why they're
Speaker 1: not putting a screen. I was surprised at first that
Speaker 1: they weren't going to incorporate a screen onto the dual
Speaker 1: Shock for controller. But but I think that especially with
Speaker 1: with everything that they're trying that they're hoping for with
Speaker 1: the Vida, that it makes perfect sense. So uh, moving
Speaker 1: back with the idea of the possibility of streaming older
Speaker 1: PS games on PS four, which still don't know about.
Speaker 1: We also are not sure if you've purchased something in
Speaker 1: the cloud already on the PlayStation network. For example, let's
Speaker 1: say you've purchased a movie on the PlayStation network, it's
Speaker 1: not clear yet that those purchases will be able to
Speaker 1: port over to the PS four. Uh that it's tricky
Speaker 1: thing to do. Their licensing issues involved to make sure
Speaker 1: that the stuff that you've already bought that you can
Speaker 1: still use it on your new platform. This is another
Speaker 1: concern that gamers have because you don't want to have
Speaker 1: to purchase the same stuff twice in order to have
Speaker 1: access to it. And you don't want to have two
Speaker 1: versions of the same kind of mensol. Yeah, you don't want.
Speaker 1: You don't want to have a PS three and APS
Speaker 1: four hooked up to the same television. Necessarily, some people
Speaker 1: do because our television has more inputs than they know
Speaker 1: what to do with, and therefore they will hook up
Speaker 1: as many different game consoles as they possibly can. I
Speaker 1: think most new TVs are like that, and my my
Speaker 1: TV does not have quite that many, so I have
Speaker 1: to make some tubes so it does. Yeah that one.
Speaker 1: Lauren's television just got color last week, so very fancy
Speaker 1: and watching the Disney's Wonderful World of Color ever since.
Speaker 1: They also ended up showing off some games while they
Speaker 1: were there, or at least some demos and a little
Speaker 1: bit of gameplay footage of a few games. All right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of them, some of them look really really shiny.
Speaker 1: I am personally extremely excited about nac oh Nack, which
Speaker 1: is uh that that was kind of a cartoony looking game,
Speaker 1: a little bit platform me. Yeah, and you play as
Speaker 1: a robot defending humanity against the Goblin invasion. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just looked like it had it had fun character art
Speaker 1: and and you know, just entertaining, kind of family friendly
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Yes, whereas I was thinking of kills
Speaker 1: his own shadow Fall that did not look family friends.
Speaker 1: That's a sci fi game. And some of the games
Speaker 1: they were showing, in fact, a lot of them were
Speaker 1: kind of sequels or spinoffs of existing games. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got an infamous second son Diablo three. Um oh yeah,
Speaker 1: now now hang on a minute, I gotta take them
Speaker 1: over Diablo three. So I did not watch this live
Speaker 1: as it was unfolding. I was I was on my
Speaker 1: way home. It aired at six pm Eastern time in
Speaker 1: the United States, and I get home a little after
Speaker 1: six pm typically, and I got there a little bit
Speaker 1: later this time, and so I look at my Twitter
Speaker 1: feed and I see, of course all the people I
Speaker 1: follow are watching, and everyone's going nuts that Diablo three
Speaker 1: is coming. To the console, and I'm thinking, Wow, I
Speaker 1: remember when you all went crazy when Diablo three came
Speaker 1: out for the PC and then never talked about it
Speaker 1: ever again, So why are you excited that it's coming
Speaker 1: to the console. And then yeah, Scott Johnson got onto
Speaker 1: me for that and got very defensive about it being
Speaker 1: a good game. Not I don't dispute that it's a
Speaker 1: good game. I wouldn't know. I haven't played it. But
Speaker 1: but at the same time, I'm just saying that within
Speaker 1: a month, no one was talking about Diablo three anymore.
Speaker 1: So it just was amusing to me that people went
Speaker 1: so crazy that Diablo three was coming to the console. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also showed off Drive Club, which is a racing game.
Speaker 1: UM and UH watch Dogs, which is kind of an
Speaker 1: open world game that's set in Chicago, and you can
Speaker 1: you can do things like uh snoop on people as
Speaker 1: they're having conversations. It's kind of interesting. The other one
Speaker 1: that I'm really excited about is uh The Witness, which
Speaker 1: is a puzzle game that looks a lot like like Mr.
Speaker 1: Riven to me, UM and the and the It's a
Speaker 1: it's a very rich environment and a very limited scope,
Speaker 1: right right, So so so yeah, another another interesting throwback
Speaker 1: to the old puzzle games. I'm also interested in Bungee's
Speaker 1: next game, Density Density Destiny Destiny Bungee Destiny waking him
Speaker 1: back to the future. Who you are my Density what anyway? No,
Speaker 1: it's Destiny. It is a game where you take part
Speaker 1: as a defender of human kind, which might sound familiar
Speaker 1: for anyone who's played Bungee games. Um, but yeah, apparently
Speaker 1: something has happened. Mankind has has spread far and wide.
Speaker 1: Things did not go so well. There was a big conflict.
Speaker 1: Now there is a city that is sort of mankind's
Speaker 1: last little um outpost, and you are one of the defenders.
Speaker 1: And it's it's an a and a persistent online world
Speaker 1: that uh, you can play either as a single player
Speaker 1: or multiplayer experience. And the as you play in the game,
Speaker 1: the things you do carry over whether it's single player multiplayer,
Speaker 1: and it's the world itself. The state of the world
Speaker 1: will change over time and it remains that way whether
Speaker 1: you're playing single or multi So the idea being that
Speaker 1: your your actions actually have consequences. Yeah, a little bit
Speaker 1: more mmo than than what I mean. Not that Halo,
Speaker 1: for example, isn't kind of technically mmo, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but then this one definitely has more what has that permanence,
Speaker 1: that persistence it because again, like with a Halo multiplayer game,
Speaker 1: you play a little you know, capture the Flag or
Speaker 1: death match or whatever, and then when you play it again,
Speaker 1: everything's reset. So this one, at least from my understanding,
Speaker 1: sounds like there's going to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a changeable world. I don't know to what extent,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how much impact you will actually
Speaker 1: have as a player on that world, but it sounded interesting.
Speaker 1: It sounds interesting. Yeah, they're didn't you do you have
Speaker 1: any others that you wanted to cover? No, no other
Speaker 1: games that want to cover, And they're they're talking about
Speaker 1: these well, I mean, these are all big titles, but
Speaker 1: they're talking about their games being anywhere from cents to
Speaker 1: about sixty bucks, which you know, not a big surprise.
Speaker 1: I heard some people kind of balk at the sixty
Speaker 1: dollar amount, but really that's what's Yeah, yeah, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what video games have costed for the past. I mean,
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong Country still costs like fifty bucks. So really
Speaker 1: you're talking about like it's it's just it's maintaining the
Speaker 1: market value, which you should really be thankful for. Thanks actually,
Speaker 1: and they are. They have not released a price point
Speaker 1: for the console yet, you know, as as we all
Speaker 1: remember the PS three debut at five dollars, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of dollars for a gaming console that is
Speaker 1: many dollars many it's more than two. And see, it's
Speaker 1: kind of smart for Sony not to announce it yet
Speaker 1: because it may very well be that they're waiting to
Speaker 1: find out more about what Microsoft is going to do.
Speaker 1: And you know, and Jack Jack Trenton has said that
Speaker 1: he hopes it will be less as and like, so say,
Speaker 1: we all you know, there we go. Sorry, that's fine,
Speaker 1: that okay? So uh. Also, Jimmy Fallon got to play
Speaker 1: I got to play a PS I've never been so
Speaker 1: jealous of Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, he wasn't able to get
Speaker 1: through the game without laughing. Well ha ha snap. Now
Speaker 1: he played kill Zone shadow Fall on his show, and
Speaker 1: according to Polygon, which is a great site for video
Speaker 1: game news, he was not very good. He's actually a
Speaker 1: bad I mean, you know, I don't know it's I
Speaker 1: I haven't watched the clip, but but you know, I
Speaker 1: imagine they kind of shoved it at him, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that I would also perform any better on
Speaker 1: live TV when dealing with the first person shooting, especially
Speaker 1: never played before. It's a game you've never played before,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be Yeah. I think I think it was
Speaker 1: probably them being a little snarky, which you know, it's
Speaker 1: to make on I'm okay with that, but uh got
Speaker 1: nothing against him personally anyway. The the it was interesting
Speaker 1: that that was another way of exposing the world to
Speaker 1: it because of course, with the announcement, all the people
Speaker 1: who were like hardcore gamers and journalists and things like that,
Speaker 1: they were all really focused on that event. But then
Speaker 1: you have to reach a broader audience, and that was
Speaker 1: a good way of starting this. And they've been Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've been doing a lot of interviews and dropping little
Speaker 1: tidbits here and there, and I think that that's I
Speaker 1: think that they're overall being pretty savvy about it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they'll be interesting to see how this continues, whether
Speaker 1: or not Microsoft has a console that can kind of
Speaker 1: answer the challenges that the S four has laid down. Um,
Speaker 1: it may very well be that there are elements of
Speaker 1: the PS four that we are not aware of that
Speaker 1: have not been revealed yet that could be lying in wait,
Speaker 1: so that so that they can they can counter anything
Speaker 1: that Microsoft says when they introduced the Xbox. Yeah, certainly
Speaker 1: they're they're talking about a m D who's making the processor,
Speaker 1: is talking about releasing more about that at the Game
Speaker 1: Developer Conference in the end of March. And and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that the three will bring us lots of lots
Speaker 1: of us. Yes, I'm sure it will. So it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how that all shakes out. And uh,
Speaker 1: and you know what's also interesting is this is going
Speaker 1: to be the year where we start to see some
Speaker 1: of these independent companies coming forward, things like the steam
Speaker 1: Box or the Yeah Uh coming out and and really
Speaker 1: competing with the established players. So it's a it's an
Speaker 1: exciting time to be a gamer. Well, guys, if you
Speaker 1: have any topics you think we should cover here on
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, I invite you to let us know by
Speaker 1: sending us an email our addresses tech stuff at disco
Speaker 1: very dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook
Speaker 1: or Twitter are handle there is tech Stuff hs W. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Lauren and I will be awaiting the announcement of the
Speaker 1: next Xbox so we can figure out how to frag
Speaker 1: one another in the next game of Halo. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it hostaff works dot com,