Rumour Control: PlayStation 4 to use AMD and Kinect-like device

Speculation mode: Activated

Hugo BrandFebruary 23, 2012

While Sony has yet to announce anything concrete about their next generation console, speculation is rife about what snazzy doodads it will be bringing to the table.

The PlayStation 3 makes use of a 550MHz Nvidia ‘Reality Synthesizer’ GPU while its rival, the Xbox 360, uses a 500MHz AMD Xenos.

The rumour, stemming from former AMD employees, indicates that Sony intends to abandon the green team in their next console and switch over to the red demon.

Both AMD and Sony have declined to comment.

A patent has recently been filed by Sony for a motion tracking camera similar to that of Microsoft’s Kinect.

The patent is essentially for a device with a specific depth range, with distances being mapped and registered. Capable of interpreting people and static objects which are then “rendered and displayed in a virtual scene”, it definitely sounds like Kinect material.

However, we already know Sony isn’t focussed on the next generation of consoles, sticking firmly to its belief that the PS3 still has a couple of years left of its ten-year run, expected to end in 2016.

For now, at least, it’s fun to speculate what the next generation PlayStation will hold in store for us.