If so it will be the only reason why am I buying the PS4.

Yes. Its been announced several times and explained that they will continue PS3 support until no longer deemed cost effective. It will be the same client netcode and gamewise and may have better graphics.

Unreal 4 Engine is very backwards capable.

Overall however ps3 will be the limiting factor, if the ps3 client cannot do it game wise, you're not going to see it exclusive special to the ps4 side. IE fully destructible buildings/terrain for example are likely to not come in until ps3 client retirement.

The real question that has been floating around though is... is it going to be a launch title? current status is just rumor though there has been no confirmation but there is that Sony event to announce the ps4 so we may know the answer then.

I'll stick to the PS3 until dust 514 is no longer support on that system, or until it breaks.

Same, I'm not munch of A gamer(At least I wasn't until Dust came around and took over my lmind o_O) but I've always enjoyed the Xbox platform more than the PS3, plus their exclusives are better.

That is a joke, right?

Not for my case, I only ever bought... 4 games for my ps3 ever. Flow, Valkaria Chronicles, MSG4 (regrettably)... I guess dust 514 doesn't count. The original reason why I got my ps3 was to be a cheap blue ray player.

I would say though dust 514 has knocked quite a bit of dust off the old black machine.

I watched this little interview with a developer from CCP a while back (cannot remember who), paraphrasing what he said: We have already made a version of eve that looked better for newer PCs, and still use the old engine for older PC so that older and newer PCs can play together... I can see us doing the same with Dust when the PS4 comes out.

:D

my question becomes, if we buy a ps4 and install dust, will there be a way to continue our current character without losing it? i'm sure the answer is "yes" due to the fact the our characters are stored with CCP, but there would need to be a way to access the character on the ps4. something to let CCP know you already have a character. make sense?

That is a joke, right?

Any programmer wants to tell me if it's possible to support both ps3 and ps4 platforms ?
I mean , there should be a transitioning period where both ps3 and ps4 are supported...

If so it will be the only reason why am I buying the PS4.

You are better of asking a unreal 3 and 4 developer on this question. Most folks i know that deal with this says that unreal 4 is able to port things back into unreal 3's capabilities and its nearly simple stupid on how easy it is.

The problem in ccp's case is that if you mess around with unreal quite often you'd know how ccp screwed up the entire engine compared to vanillia the engine is.

Can Sony even afford to sell another system at a loss for 3 years?

^Doesn't understand that software contracts cover the costs. Which is also why Nintendo is likely not going to survive this round of console wars.

You're correct. Is that the reason digital copies of games sell at full price?

You're correct. Is that the reason digital copies of games sell at full price?

Any programmer wants to tell me if it's possible to support both ps3 and ps4 platforms ?
I mean , there should be a transitioning period where both ps3 and ps4 are supported...

i'm a programmer but not a game dev...

it should be fairly easy to have common code used for both the ps3 and ps4.

calls to the unreal engine API would be common for both unreal3 and unreal4. so a command to "render wall" would be the same on each and the unreal4 engine would just do it with more detail or using higher res graphics assets.

you can also have the code do stuff based on the environment variables of the console, like :
if($operating_system eq "ps3")
{
// load small skybox
// apply simple lighting effects
}

elsif($operating_system eq "ps4")
{
// load large skybox
// apply advanced lighting effects
}

else
{
// load tiny skybox
// apply no lighting effects
}

the rest of the game play would be the same between the two consoles, but the ps4 would look much better.