An avalanche of information claiming to relate to the PlayStation 4, codenamed Orbis, has apparently been gathered by Kotaku, shedding light on details such as technical specifications and controller design.
Kotaku claims it had access to 90 PDFs containing official Orbis documentation. We’re not going to delve right into what could or what couldn’t be true at this point as we’ve heard enough rumours to last us a life-time, but some of the information presented is certainly worth a look.
Though these specifications could change for the final PS4 model – certainly the size of the HDD- here is what Kotaku claims is inside the latest PS4 development kits.
PS4 development kit specs
System Memory: 8GB
Video Memory: 2.2 GB
CPU: 4x Dual-Core AMD64 "Bulldozer" (so, 8x cores)
GPU: AMD R10xx
Ports: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet
Drive: Blu-Ray
HDD: 160GB
Audio Output: HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1 & 7.1 channels
New controllers
Following the news last week that Sony may be ditching the iconic design of the Dualshock controller for its next-gen console, Kotaku claims otherwise stating that dev kits currently support the Sixaxis and DualShock 3 controllers. However, they do claim they’ll be two new controllers. Currently named the Orbis Development Tool, one controller will apparently feature motion-sensing and a capacitive touchpad, like the back of PlayStation Vita, as well as a ‘Share’ button. The other input device will be a redesigned Move controller.
One of the most interesting things that Kotaku pulls out of the document is that users will be able to activate “multi-user simultaneous logins” allowing them to access a different account with multiple control pads. For example, users could play a local multiplayer game with four different controllers and four different accounts on one console, allowing each player to unlock the trophies for that game.
We’d take all of this with a hefty pinch of salt of course. Considering Kotaku has apparently seen 90 pages of PDFs relating to Orbis this is all the information they’ve spilled on it. Nonetheless, we like the sound of the new controller and the ability to log-in with multiple accounts so let’s hope some of this is true. With any luck it won’t be too long now before we find out the complete lowdown on the PS4 which is widely expected to be revealed at E3 in June.