Third-party PlayStation 4 developers didn't know the console would feature 8 GB of RAM until Sony announced that fact on stage at the system's mid-February reveal event, said Just Add Water CEO Stewart Gilray in an interview with Videogamer.
Until that point, said Gilray, Sony had told Just Add Water that the PS4 would only include 4 GB of RAM.
"We first knew it had 8 GBs when Mark [Cerny, lead architect of the PS4] said at the event's stage, 'And it has 8 GB of memory.' We'd had kits at that point for a good while," said Gilray, who guessed that only "a couple of really close first-parties" were aware of the console's true memory specification prior to Sony's Feb. 20 announcement.
Moreover, Sony has "already ring-fenced the system memory away from the game memory," said Gilray. He explained, "There's none of this business that we had with PS3 of having to share memories."
When the PlayStation 3 launched, it did not allow users to bring up the console's interface, the XMB, while playing a game. Sony eventually added that feature in a firmware update, but the actions available to users with the in-game XMB remain limited, because the PS3 has to share its system memory between running games and the XMB. That won't be a problem with the PS4, according to Gilray, since Sony is designing the console from the get-go to support the feature.
Just Add Water has worked with Oddworld Inhabitants to bring a number of Oddworld games into high definition, including Stranger's Wrath and Munch's Oddysee, and is now developing an unannounced PS4 title.