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Sony PlayStation (Games) Hardware

A Playstation 4 Teardown 254

Posted by timothy from the urge-to-investigate dept.
Dave Knott writes "Just over one week ahead of the launch of the Playstation 4, Wired has posted an article with a full teardown of Sony's new device. In an accompanying video Sony engineering director Yasuhiro Ootori dismantles the PS4 piece by piece, describing each component and showing just what is contained inside the sleek black box."
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A Playstation 4 Teardown More

A Playstation 4 Teardown

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  • How nice of them! (Score:5, Funny)

    by CCarrot ( 1562079 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:06PM (#45358397)

    That's super of them, to give the modders a head start like that!

  • The controllers rock! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:20PM (#45358595)

    The PS4 controller, AKA the dualshock4, is a pretty impressive little device. Trackpad, motion, control, speaker, headset, analog sticks, bunch of buttons.

    And it will connect to any device via bluetooth or USB because it shows up as a Generic HID device on both! You can pair it with your PC, phone or tablet via bluetooth or connect it to anything that supports USB.

    Right now just the basic stuff is supported. Both analog sticks and all buttons (Including the tackpad click). The big triggers register a button press, and register analog on a seperate input too. Hell, even the tilt/motion control shows up as an analog input.

    I'm fairly certain, like with the wiimote, an improved driver will be developed to access the special functions like the track pad and audio interfaces.

    I don't plan on getting the PS4 but I already have a dualshock 4 (You can buy them now at gamestop) and I'm toying with it on lots of things. Already use it as a controller on my tablet for playing emulators and it works better than anything else I've tried by far.

  • I think it's amazing Sony did this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:20PM (#45358597)
    A high-quality and detailed teardown of their own product? I think that's freaking awesome. And smart too - they know the success of the PS4 will depend on the early adopter, hard-core gamer, the type of person who has likely put together a home-grown PC gaming system and who would get excited about exactly this type of video. Well done Sony.

    • Nice marketing coup, too (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Theaetetus ( 590071 ) <theaetetus DOT slashdot AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:39PM (#45358813) Homepage Journal

      A high-quality and detailed teardown of their own product? I think that's freaking awesome. And smart too - they know the success of the PS4 will depend on the early adopter, hard-core gamer, the type of person who has likely put together a home-grown PC gaming system and who would get excited about exactly this type of video. Well done Sony.

      A detailed teardown was inevitable from someone - probably Ars Technica, for example. And that teardown comes with a review of Sony's architecture and decisions, and the review may not necessarily be entirely favorable. However, this way, the first teardown is accompanied by glowing descriptions of the hardware. Anything later is an also-ran, by definition, and will draw less eyeballs than it would have if it was first. The widest seen review now will be their own. More companies should do this.

      • Well, I was only reading the english subtitles, not the japanese, but it seemed like a very matter-of-fact teardown by their cheif engineer, not a marketing shill. If anything, they're showing off how unexotic and unremarkable the hardware is. Compared to this the first generation PS3 was a beast, with a radically new CPU architecture that burned so much power they had to make the top of the case transparent to infrared.

      • Ars? Maybe but really do you not know the place for teardowns?

        http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/ [ifixit.com]

        And as to JoeyRox's idea that this was a detailed teardown...no. No it was not. It was a fluff piece for people who don't know anything about computer hardware.

    • the success of the PS4 will depend on the early adopter, hard-core gamer, the type of person who has likely put together a home-grown PC gaming system

      Do you think a member of the PC Master Race [reddit.com] would become such a peasant?

      Note: I'm a former master race member who went to consoles, but not for the specs. I wanted the social interaction of multiplayer gaming on the same screen & couch, or with my friends that were console peasants as well.
      If I were going to drool over specs, I'd go back to building my own rig.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        This is why I am looking forward to the steambox.

        I don't really play multiplayer, but sometimes it might be nice to play those games from the couch. I magically manage to both play PC games and PS3 games.

  • Where... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Where is the 'we will screw you later on' module?

    Every sony product has one..

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Japanese has a phrase "Sony timer", pretty much pronounced that way, to described electronic gear that break the day the warranty runs out. Sony was so bad at this that their name has become the catchphrase for low quality now.

      But everyone agreed the PS3 was the one thing where they left the sonytimer out (because they want to sell games).

  • This was very interesting to watch, also to see him describe some of the hardware (such as CPU and GPU being single chip, with GDDR5 on the motherboard). I'm usually a fan of the Xbox, but I've never seen Microsoft give one shred of detail about how to take apart any product of theirs.. I've never seen Sony either, but this is a welcome change.

  • can it run linux? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 )

    can it run linux?

  • XBox One, PS4 or Wii U? (Score:3)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:31PM (#45358709)

    PS4 will have FF XIV, nothing interesting except Halo reruns for Xbox and no Metroid announced for Wii U.

    PS4 wins.

    • Re:XBox One, PS4 or Wii U? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stewsters ( 1406737 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:44PM (#45358883)
      Have you played final fantasy 13? Granted the level of video production is unmatched, but the characters are stereotypical and annoying. Its the most linear role-playing game that I have played, and I have played progress quest.

      • So true. I haven't seen anything to like on new FF titles since FFX. And X wasn't a good game by any means, it just had a cool world and a somewhat cool twist to the story. Characters, combat, dungeons, exploration all sucked, and terrible voice actors were there to cripple your enjoyment at every corner. The last FF I'd actually replay is 9.

      • I haven't played Progress Quest in years! Good times ;)

    • Ahh that brings back fond memories of FF13, the finest hallway simulator ever made. And it also taught me a valuable lesson, video game reviews are absolutely worthless. It has a metacritic score of 83 while most reviews admit that you have to wait 20 hours to get to the part that isn't a long corridor. Yep 20 hours of pushing up on the control stick, mashing 'A' randomly when a random encounter is hit and hearing that great banter between the characters which is like a conversation between Jar Jar Binks

  • I was a good 360 customer. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by P-niiice ( 1703362 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:39PM (#45358815)
    After owning 3 360s, I switched to PS3 and am never looking back after I get a PS4. Microsoft screwed themselves out of this good customer.
    • I own 2 360s, the first a release console, and the second its replacement because I wanted HDMI output. No problems at all, which I credit a 3rd party 360 fan for.

      Anyone who didn't add one of the inexpensive 3rd party cooling solutions might as well have put their 360 in the oven. Once we knew there was a problem, it was easily solved by the end-user.

      Yes, we shouldn't have had to do that, but it did solve the problem easily. Shame on MS for your first failure, but the rest were your own fault if you
      • And the PS3 has been a stellar experience from day one which hasn't required me to buy 3rd party coolers to work properly.

  • Stickers on the back (Score:3, Informative)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @01:44PM (#45358871)

    He makes a comment about how the stickers are there on the back screws to discourage people opening it up and then he goes on to say you can replace the HD with any standard drive.

    Seems they thought of what would happen if people tried to sell their PS4 on the used market. It would be easy/easier for the buyer to tell if the unit had been opened up while still allowing for people to upgrade their systems.

    It's not like they dropped some security torx screws in this or other odd screws like others do (Apple).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The harddrive is accessed from the side with a simple pop open access panel and a single screw holding the drive's bracket in place. He was doing a tear down. You do not do that to swap in another 2.5" drive!

      The PS3 also has stickers over casing screws. It's obvious if it's been opened (YLOD repair).

    • You can replace the harddrive without opening the console, just like on the PS3.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      He makes a comment about how the stickers are there on the back screws to discourage people opening it up and then he goes on to say you can replace the HD with any standard drive.

      Seems they thought of what would happen if people tried to sell their PS4 on the used market. It would be easy/easier for the buyer to tell if the unit had been opened up while still allowing for people to upgrade their systems.

      They all have those warranty void stickers. The PS3 has it on the bottom, and some unscrupulous types r

  • This is the first time they have released a console that uses the same optical format as its predecessor - yet it can't play the software written for said predecsessor. They have made their old stuff obsolete and are demanding people pay more money to get that much more. I'd be surprised if people are willing to part with $400 for this new generation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pope ( 17780 )

      Yeah, because your old PS2 and 3 suddenly stop working with the 4 comes out.

      And used PS3s simply disappear off the face of the earth!

      • You're being goofy. It's completely understandable that people are annoyed that they can't just put their PS4 where their PS3 had been due to the lack of backward compatibility. Sony was one of the companies that trained their customers to expect it, and could have delivered it if not for the huge misstep of using the Cell Processor in the PS3 rather than a PC-like system.
        • ^ This, times 10...

          I have 2 PS3s in my house, we have a huge libary of games for the PS3. I was a buyer day 1 with a 60GB unit that was backwards PS2 hardware compatible.

          I would have bought a pair of PS4s on launch day if they had PS3 hardware inside of them, even if they cost $599 each.

          Sony, pay attention... Some of us have money to spend, we don't mind... but what we do mind is having a bunch of boxes in front of our TVs. I will have a single console in front of my TV, not 2, not 3, just 1... I

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      3 folks in my office already have them preordered. My boss took a day off to collect his and play it.

      I am debating this or a steambox.

      $400 is not exactly a fortune.

    • This is the first time they have released a console that uses the same optical format as its predecessor

      Yeah, and the last time, they had to put a PS2 chip on the mainboard just to do it--adding to the cost and footprint of the PS3 to do it (part of the reason it was $600 at launch). This time they're going for something a little more affordable, and so they weren't about to slap on an entire PS3 chipset on there just so a handful of nitpickers could play their old PS3 games without needing another HDMI port.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      This is the first time they have released a console that uses the same optical format as its predecessor - yet it can't play the software written for said predecsessor.

      Because it's the optical drive, not the core architecture of the CPU that matters here. Why not bring up the fact that they also use the same power cord?

  • HD is replaceable (Score:3)

    by adisakp ( 705706 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @03:02PM (#45359647) Journal
    The 500GB HD can be replaced by any commercial drive of larger capacity according to the engineer in the video!

  • I like that Sony provided the teardown. It shows a certain amount of openess and I get the sense that the engineers that designed it want us to see it in all its glory.

    But then I see other things [theregister.co.uk] pop up, like having to download an update and register the device before I can play Blu-ray discs, that it won't play MP3s or CDs, that it won't stream video content from my computer. All of this reeks of a lame attempt to force PS4 owners into subscribing to Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited by placing ar

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