PlayStation 4 has been out for just over two years now in the U.S. and Europe, and in that time, it appears the system has become a little more powerful thanks to Sony surreptitiously unlocking the system’s seventh CPU core for developers to get to grips with.
You see, the electronics giant originally restricted game development on its flagship console to just six CPU cores of the eight in total available. However, according to a changelog (via NeoGAF) for the FMOD audio middleware, Sony has now allowed access to the PS4’s "newly unlocked seventh core," which means developers now have a lot more power to play with.
Microsoft did something similar with the Xbox One, although while this move was highly publicised, Sony has opted to make the switch under the radar. Still, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to Sony console owners, as the Japanese giant previously applied many performance tweaks to the PS3 during its lifecycle, as well as overclocking the PlayStation Portable without so much as a word to consumers.
The effects of this change probably won’t be obvious for a while, as many of the games currently in development for the PS4 will still be utilising the six CPU cores. However, in the future, new projects will be able to benefit from a little bit more extra technical prowess as developers take advantage of the seventh core.
Sony announced earlier this week that it has sold 30.2 million PS4 consoles since its launch in November 2013, with 11.7 million shifted in 2015 so far alone. The console remains comfortably ahead of the Xbox One in terms of overall sales; Microsoft has even admitted that it may not be able to catch up to PS4 going forward, and remains decidedly shy in regards to just how many consoles its flagship system has sold to date. Over in the U.K., the PS4 is currently tracking well ahead of the PS2 in terms of sales, which is no mean feat considering the latter is Sony’s best-selling home console to date.
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