A cascade of announcements from Sony and Microsoft is approaching, tumbling toward gamers' collective consciousness as we inch closer and closer to E3 2013. Executives remain tight lipped on the exact details and developers have yet to let loose with official specs, but Eurogamer's Digital Foundry has caught a scent.
'Trusted sources' tell the site that the PS4 will feature a 1.6GHz eight-core CPU, 4GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 512MB of OS dedicated memory. The insider failed to mention the specific graphics card (GPU), but editor Richard Leadbetter speculates that its design will be similar to the AMD Radeon 7970M. An additional module may be included "to ease the burden of certain operations - physics calculations are a good example of traditional CPU work that are often hived off to GPU cores," say the writer.
IGN claims that 'well placed sources' revealed that Sony's next gen console will sport a "custom silicon" modeled after the HD 7670 GPU and AMD A8-series APU.
Little has been said about the Playstation 4's media connectivity, but Variety reports that sources close to Sony say that "ongoing talks [are] far beyond exploratory" in regards to a proprietary TV programming service. The company will reportedly craft a virtual MSO, which is an online cable service.
Sony's will likely offer traditional bundles akin to Cablevision or DirectTV's packages, but won't require a cable wire or dish to stream content to users' households. The source claims that Sony's cable alternative could launch as early as this year. Should Sony decide to follow through with its plan, the upcoming Playstation 4 would likely provide connectivity to the service.