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INTEREST: Sony Reveals PlayStation 4 Home Console

As much as we all want backwards compatibility, it's almost certainly not feasible. Emulation is horribly inefficient--emulating Gamecube and PS2 games on a PC was impossible for even the best gaming comp until recently, and it's still impossible to emulate PS360 games. The PS4 is probably just not powerful enough to emulate the PS3.

Hmm you can't really emulate ps2 games well since the bios was written in way to make it next to impossible.

Personally I think the backward compatibility thing is just a generic complaint that people harp on the minute any new device is announced, like it's part of some rulebook they have for talking about this stuff on the internet. Sony announces a new console with all these new features and ideas built in, let's talk about absolutely nothing but backward compatibility is the result.

Your figures are inaccurate. $300 B.O.M. would mean $500-550.

Sony CANNOT afford any losses on consoles, pricing it at $400 would cause a serious risk for Sony.

$600 would be the safest bet with no losses. But Sony would HAVE to be lucky to to get it at $500-550.

BTW, the Australian place holder price is at $950 AUD, if it holds together, PS4 will retail for around $550-600.(Wii U's was $599 but the console was still over a year away from launch, PS4 is not.)

Hmm you can't really emulate ps2 games well since the bios was written in way to make it next to impossible. Even the most poweful pc's can not emulate Sega Saturn games again because how the system was designed/made. However you can emulate game-cube games with the dolphin emulator just fine. Now I know a-lot of people will hate me for this but most if not all ps3/360 games are on the pc "aside from quirky Japanese games of course" so there isn't a need for emulation. Hell most pc versions of said games look even better than their console counter-parts "fallout3/newvegas comes to mind"

The price estimates I've seen so far don't put the PS4 at less than 500 on release, maybe even 600. Fat chance I'm buying it until it goes way down... but I still at this point I rather buy the new xbox.

Things they did NOT talk about that I wanted to know about were will the PS4 allow a used game market?

the other things NOT talked about that I wanted to know is will it always have to be online to work like the new XBOX.

these two things were the most important none talked about bits of the whole show for a real gamer!

The whole GDDR 5 memory at 8GB means it will be strong graphic wise but games today never touched the old specs to start with.

also will it use blue-ray format?

Anyways, here's an interesting different take on the next console wars:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-02-15-playstation-4-must-demolish-the-walled-garden

• Sony's next-gen strategy needs to rethink the business model, not the hardware specifications
  
  It's a testament to how much the games business has changed in the past decade, however, that despite having information about hardware specifications and controller design, we really know nothing about Sony's plans. We know what will be in the box, but never has that been so unimportant. Nobody sane doubts Sony's ability to competently construct a box that sits under a television and plays games that look nicer than the ones we've got now (and similarly nice to the ones that will be played on Microsoft's rival under-telly-box).
  
  I'm not talking about turning PlayStation 4 into a great platform to play Angry Birds on, or stepping up to the pointless war against tablets and mobile phones that exists only in the heads of enraged internet comment posters. I'm talking about engaging with the fact that right now, as a developer working on a great new idea, you can go out and find hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in bringing your game to market on a console - a process which will probably also strip you of ownership of your IP and of creative control of the game itself, let alone its marketing and so on - or you can release it on tablets, smartphones and PCs for a cost as close to zero as makes no odds. This isn't about Angry Birds any more; it's about Minecraft, or Thomas Was Alone, or The Room, or Dear Esther, or New Star Soccer, or Proteus, or FTL. The problem consoles face in the next generation isn't that people are playing simple casual games on phones - it's that developers of complex, interesting and engrossing games are bringing them to phones, tablets and PCs rather than jumping through the ludicrous hoops it takes to get a game onto a console.
  
  Consoles are, ultimately, the AAA platform. They're the platform where expensively developed games with high production values are sold at a high cost to consumers who care deeply about the pastime and are willing to devote significant disposable income to it. That's fine, and it's a lucrative corner of the industry - but it's not enough. Consoles cannot just be a playground for publishers with millions to spend, because that's not where game development is headed, as an industry. Where the indie developers have blazed a trail, more established firms are now following - recognising that, at long last, they have an option other than prostrating themselves at the gates of the platform holders' walled gardens.