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Sony’s PlayStation 4 is like being given the “world’s best PC” which is capable of amazing things, Epic Games vice president Mark Rein has told CVG.
“We’re really pleased with what we got – at least so far from Sony,” Rein told CVG at GDC last week. “Tim Sweeney is really the best person to ask that question but he’s over the moon with it. This is a phenomenal piece of hardware and we’re going to do amazing things with it.”
Speaking specifically about the off-the-shelf nature of the PS4’s components and the rumoured specification of the next Xbox, Rein added: “It’s really important for us because we know the PC, we know the evolution of the PC and we work closely with those vendors on those parts.
“There’s nothing that we have to guess about – we know what the processors can do, we know what the CPUs can do and we’re using those same parts on the actual development hardware that we use. It just makes it a lot smother and it also means we can build on our particular strength.
“It’s a smart thing to do. They’re going to benefit from it – there won’t be that whole ‘how do we make this work’, there’s just going to be ‘wow, what can we do with this?’ And we’ll do great things.”
Rein continued: “I think it’s a very smart move on Sony’s behalf to build this sort of enhanced PC architecture and then put so much in it. Let’s not forget it has 16 times the memory we had in PlayStation 3 – that’s not insignificant. Knowing that every machine has that… we can do crazy, ridiculous stuff with that.”
The VP also suggested that limitations placed on PC gaming because of Windows will give PS4 the advantage.
“The other exciting thing is that… when you think about Windows, even Windows for most people is tied to about 2GB of addressable memory space. This really opens up beyond what most PCs can do, because most PCs are running a 32-bit versions of Windows.
“It’s like giving you the world’s best PC. ‘We’re going to make it super convenient, we’re going to make it easy for you to get games on there, we’re going to start the games running while you’re downloading them and we’re going to perform your updates in the background.’ You’re not going to turn this thing off… you’re just going to sleep it and it’s going to come back on.
“The kind of stuff that they announced that they’re doing, the level of convenience and things like that… they’re making a really perfect gaming PC.”
While Rein didn’t offer details on what Microsoft has in store with the next Xbox, he does believe it will share much of what Sony is promising with the PS4.
“I’m sure that Microsoft will be doing something along those lines,” said Rein. “I’ve always said that the things in the next-generation that aren’t just brute force hardware are all about the service and simplicity of the experience – the things that make it as fun and easy to get a PS4 game as it is to get a game on your iPad.
“If anything, they [next gen systems] are probably going to exceed that. That’s going to be good for gamers – a really high level of convenience. Then to have it combined with amazing hardware specs that everybody will have, at I’m sure will be a reasonable price… it will be good for everybody.”
Expect to hear more about Sony’s PS4 launch plans at E3 in June. Microsoft is rumoured to be unveiling the next Xbox later this month.
Source: CVG
