Here's how the bean counters nearly killed the PS4

PS4 could have been a 2GB flash in the pan
PS4 - winning, but only because some decisions went the right way

The PS4 might well be flying high, but it could have been a much lesser beast if Sony hadn't opted against some retrospectively ludicrous cost-cutting.

Speaking at the Develop conference Mark Cerny, the lead architect for PlayStation 4, outlined just how very different Sony's gaming baby could have been, if the bean-counters got their way

And let's just say that the arguments around the Xbox One's framerate would have been very different.

Cerny told Develop that he went through his own personal storage wars to secure a hard drive rather than a few gigs of flash memory, and that the current 8GB of RAM was very nearly a paltry 2GB.

"Hard drives are expensive, and it's not like you can put half a hard drive in a console," he said.

Flash. Ah ha!

"The alternative is flash but you can't put much flash memory in it. We went through all the pluses and minuses - many minuses - of not having a hard drive... the conclusion was we needed to include one and it cost a billion dollars."

"In the early days we were thinking do we need 2GB or do we need 4GB?"

On such decisions console wars are won and lost.

  • Check out our PS4 review

From Eurogamer via Kotaku UK

TOPICS
Patrick Goss

Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content.  After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.

Latest in PS4
A villain plots in a bar
Respawn director explains why Jedi Survivor won’t be on Xbox One and PS4
DualShock 4 controller sat on top of a PS4 console
Microsoft confirms what we always suspected about the PS4
Key art of Clive Rosfield (left) and Joshua Rosfield (right), standing back to back
I'm glad the PS4 version of Final Fantasy 16 was scrapped
PS4 console with controller in dim lighting
Don't expect new PS4 games after 2025
A pixelized image of Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Zero Dawn on PS1 doesn’t look half bad
Sony WH-1000XM3
My trusty old Sony headphones convinced me to ditch my gaming headset for PS4
Latest in News
A young woman is working on a laptop in a relaxed office space.
I’ll admit, Microsoft’s new Windows 11 update surprised me with its usefulness, providing accessibility fixes, a gamepad keyboard layout, and PC spec cards
inZOI promotional material.
inZOI has become the most wishlisted game on Steam, but I wouldn't get too caught up in the hype
Xbox Series X and Xbox wireless controller set to a green background
Xbox Insiders are currently testing a new Game Hub feature that looks useful, but I've got mixed feelings about it
A stylized depiction of a padlocked WiFi symbol sitting in the centre of an interlocking vault.
Broadcom warns of worrying security flaws affecting VMware tools
Nespresso Vertuo Pop machine in Candy Pink with coffee drinks and capsules
My favorite Nespresso coffee maker just got a fresh new makeover, and now I love it even more
Microsoft Surface Laptop and Surface Pro devices on a table.
Hate Windows 11’s search? Microsoft is fixing it with AI, and that almost makes me want to buy a Copilot+ PC