1.1266538-1038580839
Gamers wait for the launch of the PlayStation 4 console at E Max and Geekay Games in Dubai Mall. Image Credit: Arshad Ali, Gulf News

Dubai: Crowds flocked to Dubai Mall games stores to get their hands on the PlayStation 4, Sony’s new gaming console, which went on sale at midnight on Thursday.

“The crowd is much bigger than we anticipated across all our five stores,” Nadeem Khanzadah, head of retail at Jumbo Electronics said.

He said Jumbo expects to run out of stocks by Friday evening.

Geekay Games was expected to open its outlets at 11pm but the Dubai Mall outlet was opened only at midnight.

Many were seen crowding outside Emax, Geekay Games, Sharaf DG and Virgin Megastore.

Key retailers have registered more than 4,300 in pre-orders for the fourth-generation device.

Sharaf DG said that it have enough stocks to service all customer orders – pre ordered and fresh customers.

“Sharaf DG expects to sell over 2000 units of Sony PS4 console in the first month,” Nilesh Khalkho, CEO at Sharaf DG, told Gulf News.

He said Sharaf DG has received over 500 pre-orders.

Khanzadah said, “We have received 1,000 pre-orders and would have easily crossed 5,000 had we not capped pre-bookings.”

He said the GCC will further contribute to the global sales figures that have so far surpassed 2.1 million units, meeting and possibly surpassing initial Sony predictions of selling 3 million units globally by year’s end.

PlayStation 4 is capable of 10 times the processing power of the PS3 system it replaces. PS4 features an optimised design featuring a unified 8GB of high-speed GDDR5 RAM, an eight core X86 CPU, and a very powerful graphics processor. Generally speaking, the PS4 system will enable game developers to build larger, more detailed worlds than they could with the PS3 system.

More realistic lighting models, more complex physics and particle effects, more varied and realistic character animations, sharper environment and object textures, higher screen resolutions (up to 1080p), higher frame rates (up to 60 frames per second), larger multiplayer matches and more will be possible thanks to the PS4 system’s next-generation hardware.

There will be 33 games available on PS4 in 2013, including blockbusters such as Call of Duty-Ghosts, FIFA ‘14, Assassin’s Creed-Black Flag and Battlefield 4, as well as games from Sony’s own studios, including Killzone-Shadow Fall, and Knack.

Alongside these huge games, there will be a large selection of innovative and fun Indie games.

The standalone console costs Dh1,699 and PS4+Killzone game bundle for Dh1,899 in the UAE. Apart from the console there would be 10 games and accessories available for the entertainment of the gamers. The controller is Dh269, camera is Dh299 and a game is Dh299.