By Bonnie James/Deputy News Editor

“PS4 will be released in at least one region across the world during the Western holiday season this year,” Robert Fisser, general manager, SCE (Middle East, Africa, Turkey and India), stated. But he declined to confirm if PS4 will be available in Qatar in Q1 2014.

“We are ahead of all our competitors, in terms of PS3 sales, whether it is in the region or in Qatar,” Fisser claimed, though he did not reveal any statistics in support.

The SCE official explained that PS4 is ‘not a successor’ to PS3, which has sold 70mn units globally, including 30mn in the PAL region comprising Middle East and North Africa, and there is ‘still a long future for PS3.’

“PS4, an addition to the PS family, like PSP and PS Vita, will offer a completely new gaming experience,” Fisser said.

PS4 is being promoted as ‘a next generation computer entertainment system that redefines rich and immersive gameplay with powerful graphics and speed, intelligent personalisation, deeply integrated social capabilities, and innovative
second-screen features.’

Combined with PlayStation Network with cloud technology, PS4 offers an expansive gaming ecosystem. PS4 is centred around a powerful custom chip that contains eight x86-64 cores and a state-of-the-art graphics processor.

The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has been enhanced, to allow for ease of general purpose computing such as physics simulation. The GPU contains a unified array of 18 compute units, which collectively generate 1.84 Teraflops of processing power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mix of the two.

PS4 is equipped with 8 GB of unified system memory, improving game creation and richness of content achievable on the platform.  GDDR5 is used for this memory, giving the system 176 GB/second of bandwidth and providing a further boost to graphics performance.

PS4 provides dedicated, ‘always on’ video compression and decompression systems that enables seamless uploading of gameplay. For the first time ever, gamers can share their triumphs with the press of a button.

Hit the ‘Share button’ on the controller, scan through the last few minutes of gameplay, tag it and return to the game — the video uploads as the gamer plays. Gamers can share their images and videos to their friends on social networking services such as Facebook.

PS4 also enhances ‘social spectating’ by enabling gamers to broadcast their gameplay in real-time to friends using live Internet streaming services such as Ustream. If a gamer gets stuck on a level, friends can also join the game in completely new ways - for example, by offering ‘health potions or special weapons.’

Users can connect their Facebook account with Sony Entertainment Network account. Through PS4, users are able to deepen their connections through co-op play or ‘cross-game chat.’

PS4 integrates second screens, including PS Vita, smartphones and tablets, enabling ‘remote play.’ Gamers will be able to pull PS4 titles from their TVs and play them on PS Vita over Wi Fi networks.

A new application from SCE, ‘PlayStation App,’ will enable iPhone, iPad, and Android based smartphones and tablets to become second screens.

The ‘suspend mode’ keeps the system in a low power state while preserving the game session. Hit the power button again and players can instantly resume playing the game at the exact point where they left off.

PS4 also enables games to be downloaded or updated in the background, or even in stand-by mode. The system takes it one step further by making digital titles playable as they are being downloaded.