Targeting the top

It’s probably fair to say that the PlayStation 3 was dealt an unfortunate hand when it came to multiplatform games. The complex architecture of the console meant that most third-party studios struggled to get to grips with the machine, resulting in plenty of dodgy ports – especially in the system’s earlier days.

However, with the impending PlayStation 4, Sony is hoping to eschew that problem with a more traditional architecture and plenty of horsepower. It’s an attribute that Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida deems particularly important, as the platform holder strives for the best version of all multiplatform games.

“We need to make sure users consider the PS4 version to be the best and the one that they want to play,” he told Japanese publication 4Gamer.net. “That might mean that the graphics are better, the controller is more comfortable, or the point I mentioned earlier about the console being more user-friendly, like you don’t have to turn the power on and off or you can switch between your game and Netflix at will.”

Indeed, Yoshida believes that ease of use is going to be equally imperative in the next generation. “On portable smartphones and tablets, you can start playing as soon as you want to and quit whenever you like,” he said. “PS4 will be a home console that can do that too.”

The impending platform’s simplistic architecture and outrageous specifications should give it an advantage in the multiformat face-off, but we’ll need to wait until 21st May to see how Microsoft’s machine fares before we can be sure that the PS4 will get the best version of most third-party games.

[source 4gamer.net, via edge-online.com]