so basically sony builds a pc, puts a "ps"-label on the case and sells it as a console? well, why not. it reduces a lot of costs that you have to spend when you use very customized hardware and developers will be pleased, too. but it will push pc-gamers back into talk as they can directly compare their gaming-rigs with the ps4 but this matters only on gaming-forums :)

So essentially Sony is doing the MS approach to hardware specs.

yea, a SSD of that size alone would cost 130€+ (consumer price - still atleast 80-100€ for companies)

which will of course result in the same approach as ms: an easy to develop console which i think is a very good idea, especially for getting liked by devs. ms can do whatever hardware they want if they maintain the good dev-software they provide which is a sure thing, in my opinion.

The software changes described seem very significant to me - telling of a new direction they're taking.

Sigh... you can't aim for 1080p @ 60fps. If you have that much extra power to work with, developers will beef up the graphics until it's running at 720 @ 30. They will use that power if you make it available to them.

Sounds great to me. 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD would be perfect. Build a system around that, for $450, sell it for $400 entry, and $500 Elite and I see the best of both worlds.

8 GB RAM would be awesome. That would be 16 times PS3.

It would also be great if they had an EDRAM this time around. The 360's greatest strength that went underutilized because of its limitation of 10 MB.

Unless Sony says they will not allow any content on the unit that does not meet those requirments. I think that has to be the case, and is there duty as a platform holder. They have to mandate a minimum quality product.

exactly. orbis will not have enough power to make graphics more detailed, texture-res much higher, greatly improve polycount and lighting and allow more cpu-power for ai and stuff *and* let the games run at 1080p with 60 fps. this would result in a very expensive ps4.