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PlayStation 4's 8GB RAM kept secret from third-party developers - Report

UK developer Just Add Water said it only found out about PlayStation 4's 8GB of RAM during the console's unveiling.

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Sony kept details of the PlayStation 4's 8GB of DDR5 RAM hidden from "most" third parties until the machine was officially announced, Just Add Water CEO Stuart Gilray has said.

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Speaking to VideoGamer, Gilray said Just Add Water--which had access to a PlayStation 4 devkit ahead of the console's announcement--only found out the exact specifications when lead systems architect Mark Cerny announced it during the PlayStation 4's unveiling on February 20.

"We were told [PS4] was 4GB originally," said Gilray. "We first knew it had 8GB when [Cerny] said at the event's stage, 'And it has 8GB of memory.' We'd had kits at that point for a good while."

Gilray added that he thought a couple of close first-party developers knew about the 8GB of RAM but that "most third-parties, if not all third-parties were like, 'Yeah, 4GB, awesome, can't wait.'"

Gravity Crash and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD developer Just Add Water is currently working on an unannounced title for the PlayStation 4.

Gilray was also keen to praise Sony's decision to opt for 8GB of GDDR5 memory. "It's a fantastic amount of memory," he said, "especially DDR5 memory, because it's so fast you don't have to have everything there at once. You can swap it in and out instantly, effectively. But when they said 8GB it was like, 'Ooookay.'"

Another advantage of developing for PlayStation 4, according to Gilray, is that Sony has "ring-fenced" memory for system functions away from the memory used by games. "When you press the PlayStation button on a PS3 game, you get the basic XMB up [but] to do anything you have to quit the game, because of the memory for it. With PS4 we don't have that because the system memory is already ring-fenced for itself."

The PlayStation 4 is due to be released later in 2013, though specific regional availability is currently unknown. According to one report, the system will launch in November starting at $430.

Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat recently said PlayStation 4 development is a 'radical change' for Sony.

For more information on the PlayStation 4, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

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