Later today, when you're stuffed to the rafters with an inordinate amount of turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pie, and whatever else happens to be 'round the Thanksgiving table, and you find yourself slovenly in front of the television with your belt unbuckled and the remote control mocking you from a coffee table that might as well be in the next state, the thing you'll be most thankful for is this absurdly long sentence coming to an end, and for a new video that shows your gravy stained self how to have the PlayStation 4 do your bidding with voice commands.
Nintendo brought motion controls to the masses with the Wii, and Microsoft set the standard for voice control with Kinect, but Sony's not sitting out on the party this time around. Voice control for the PS4 is limited, but with the PS Camera in the mix, you can still do some impressive things here and there:
- You can start up a game by saying the title, followed by "start"
- log in or out, go to the home screen
- take a screenshot
- turn the console off and on, etc.
Voice commands so far work in English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Japanese, which is pretty good since the console is heading to quite a few countries at the end of the week where those languages factor in pretty heavily.
It's early yet, and voice command functionality will improve over time, but check out the video below to see what you can do for the time being:
Already available in North America for $399, the PlayStation 4 boasts Supercharged PC architecture, X86 CPU, Enhanced PC GPU, and 8GB Unified Memory under the hood, according to the official specs.
It supports the same PlayStation Plus service as the Vita and PlayStation 3. However, a Plus subscription is required for online multiplayer games, but not for additional media services like Netflix. Sony has also updated the Dual Shock controllers with a touch screen and improved shoulder triggers, and bundles the console with a headset.
Available titles for the system include Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag,Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts,Killzone: Shadow Fall, Madden NFL 25,NBA 2K14, Need for Speed: Rivals, and more. It's scheduled to release in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. at the end of the week. You can check out a complete list of launch titles' prices and install sizes here. For those of you still without the console, and plans to buy it later, make sure you also grab the companion app, and the system update, both of which are ready to download, before you do.
Be sure to keep checking back with Gamenguide for more of the latest updates.
