So, it's a Locked In Sony Branded PC from 2010 then? :P
Seriously, the specs look good, albeit very very limited on what they tell us, but I'm more concerned about how much of a loss they are making per console. It won't be as much as the PS3, since AMD components are cheaper than Intel and Nvidia's, but I'm pretty sure they will be running at a loss for the first few years, at least.
The APU has a custom Jaguar CPU with 8 cores running with an implementation of AMD64 (Which will allow them to have >3.5GB of ram for those arguing above). But how are the cores assembled? Are cores dedicated to GFX and background tasks or does it thread between them? What speed are the cores running at? Blurb I have read says it's up to 1.8GHz on the die, which really isn't that good, and some say up to 1.8GHz per core, which is better. I'm basing this on looking at the Jaguar, the PS4 one may be different. The more information we get on the spec more we can start see where it fits in. Also, the Jaguar is aimed at the Intel Atom CPU (a low-power mobile/PC/Server CPU), just to put this into perspective.
The GPU portion of the APU is probably equivalent to 78xx card/660GTX. It will be customised, naturally, so will be able to pull some pretty good effects. Can't really comment on that much since there is so little information about it to do a comparison.
8GB DDR5 memory, is always good. 8GB will be shared, like in the PS3, but will it impact the ability to play a game. 8GB is a lot, even by todays standards, but if you are downloading then your HDD is also a limiting factor. 8GB is a good move.
Another factor I'm interested in is power. The Jaguar can get up to 1.8GHz depending on power limitations on the motherboard. Will the PS4 have anything like this in place? When it runs up to maximum power, then what effects will that have on the chip. There is, actually, very limited information on the specs of the console at this point in time, although more details will be released through out the year before it's launch.
Overall, depending on price, it looks like it will sit between the Medium - High PC bracket initially. It will be a good buy for those on the PS3 looking for the next best thing, but for PC gamers will a semi-decent PC, not so much since the cost of GFX cards will have come down again by the time the PS4 is released. This is a nice piece of kit which Sony has actually thought about.
As a PC gamer, the PS4/Durango is a good thing. Good in the fact that shackles of this generation of consoles will be removed and games for the PC will begin to look better. DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.3+ will be standard instead of having to code for DX9/OpenGL 2.x and tagging DX11 on top. It will also remove the limited memory usage and makes game 64Bit instead of the current 32bit. So we will have better AI, better non-critical game components (Background stuff like birds, fauna), Better physics and more. Ports of console games to PC will be much better, look better and, hopefully, play better. Games will run on multiple cores correctly, instead of threading between them. This generation has gone on too long and has not allowed the PC to truely stretch it's legs. With the new consoles, I'm hoping that this will be different, for the first few years at least.
The only thing that worries me about the release of these next gen consoles is that companies will concentrate on graphics again, like they did when the PS3/360 were released. Now I do like my games to look good, artistic style over how many polygons it can push, but I also like my games to have actual game play. I have a feeling that we will see the same games rehashed with new graphics until a small indie company comes out with something new.
Overall, I like the PS4 but I probably won't be buying one initially, since a £200 upgrade to a 680 will be substantially less than the cost of either the PS4/Durango.