In case you hadn’t realised there’s a difference between the guys who design the inside of a console and the guys who design the outside, take a look at this tweet (via PlayStation) from PS4 lead architect and game development legend Mark Cerny.
Cerny: I hadn’t actually seen the console until Monday’s event. I wanted to wait and see it when the rest of the world did. It’s beautiful
— PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) June 12, 2013
Sony took a lot of heat, much of it justified, when it unveiled a console back in February without actually unveiling a console. Sony said back then that designs were still being worked on; if Cerny somehow avoided seeing one until June, I guess they left it late to lock one down!
Comments
3 responses to “Not Even The PS4’s Lead Architect Knew What The PS4 Looked Like”
Isn’t that, like, bad?
Shouldn’t Sony be integrating the hardware design with respect to things like thermal and vibration performance?
Or have they designed a blank chassis and the plastic shell was done later?
I think it’s more likely that they had several different variants and hadn’t chosen the final design until quite late.
Not really, Cerny worked on the inside of the box, ultimately what they want to put in it and how everything works, I’d imagine he would have had input on Menu GUI also.
Once they lock down what the inside will like, they hand it off to the design team with basically one directive, make something that makes this work.
I don’t think so. I think it’s a good thing. I see it as:
The hardware guys design to the best of their abilities without having to restrict it due to a particular shape of the ps4.
The outside guys will design to the best of their abilities to make sure that the hardware doesn’t overheat and still looks nice.