PS4 News: New Details About Controller, PSN Account Revealed at GDC

Sony was at the Game Developers Conference at San Francisco, and at a panel entitled "Developing for the PlayStation 4," Sony Computer Entertainment America senior staff engineer Chris Norton revealed several new details about the next-gen console.

Some of the most exciting changes are coming to the PlayStation 4 controller. The company is getting rid of the analog buttons of the previous console and replaces them with digital buttons. The change is because developers did not use the analog buttons ability to sense pressure, so Sony has decided to scrap the feature. The L2 and R2 buttons will be getting a curvier design, and the PlayStation 4 will be able to charge your controllers even while in sleep mode. The light bars for the PlayStation 4 are also getting upgraded, as they will light up in different colors for each corresponding player. Player 1 is blue, Player 2 red, Player 3 green, and Player 4 shall be pink. The light bar will also be able to light up to display muzzle flashes from guns or show health.

The PlayStation 4 shall be getting new accessories as well. Most useful is that headsets will finally be a standard item in every PlayStation 4 bundle, so a lot more players will be able to communicate online. The PlayStation Eye is also revamped, and will use a separate SCE port so that it does not take up a USB port. The Eye will also be able to be used for login, speech recognition, or making video taunts for a killcam.

The PlayStation 4 will also have a few changes to players PSN accounts. The friends list shall be expanded past the current limit of 100 to an unknown number, and the PlayStation 4 can use a players social media accounts to find friends or display the player's real name, if they choose to.

Norton also mentioned that the PlayStation 4 will have "a very large hard drive in every console," increased remote play abilities with the handheld Vita, and that the PlayStation 4 will handle all recording and sharing content without the developers needing to work it in. The PlayStation 4 is expected to be out during the holidays this year.