Sony Corp on Wednesday unveiled a pair of new offerings for its industry-leading PlayStation 4 (PS4), including a deluxe version that is compatible with cutting-edge high dynamic range television.
The two new products supplement the Oct. 13 launch of Sony’s eagerly anticipated virtual-reality headset and come ahead of the key holiday shopping season as the Japanese company hopes to maintain its edge over Microsoft Corp’s Xbox.
The PS4 Slim is an energy-efficient version of the conventional PlayStation 4, which has sold more than 40 million consoles since being launched in late 2013.
The lighter-weight version will hit the market on Thursday next week and sell for US$299, about US$50 less than a conventional PlayStation 4.
Most of the launch event focused on the high-dynamic-range offering, the PS4 Pro, which is aimed at gaming diehards and billed as a major change in terms of making games more immersive and lifelike.
“It was always our intention to design the PlayStation 4 as a platform to simulate and fuel future revolution,” Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc chief executive officer Andrew House said.
Games shown on the PS4 Pro during the 45-minute event displayed the textual detail of the Spiderman’s costume, the vivid emotionalism and of Lara Croft in the popular Tomb Raider series and the intricate otherworldliness of the alien universe in the Mass Effect: Andromeda game.
Gaming developers Activision Inc and Electronic Arts Inc said such popular games as Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Mass Effect: Andromeda would be ready once the PS4 Pro launches.
Brief demonstrations of the games were held in a mostly darkened auditorium of Sony’s PlayStation theater near Times Square accompanied by booming music.
Sony officials said both Netflix Inc and YouTube are developing apps that can run on the PS4 Pro, which will launches on Nov. 10 for US$399. Developers are also being guided to introduce games that are compatible across the PlayStation 4 universe.
PS4 has seen the fastest and strongest adoption since the first generation of the console was introduced in late 1994. The device is a key element in Sony’s strategy of creating a home entertainment hub centered around the console.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”