How Sony applied the lessons of the past in designing the PlayStation 4

Sony’s PlayStation 4 was designed with considerable input from game developers. And it was made to simplify process of designing high-quality games, according to PS 4 architect Mark Cerny. In a speech at the Gamelab game conference in Barcelona, Spain, Cerny said that Sony went out of its way in this generation to win over influential game developers as it pitched them their ultimate game machine.

Sony designed the PlayStation 3 in secrecy without much game developer input. It wound up with a complex and costly machine that proved difficult for developers to master, and Sony paid for that in the last generation. Now it learned from those mistakes and has applied the lessons to the design of the PS 4, Cerny said.