(source: http://www.joystiq.com/)

Playstation 4 is coming this holiday season! The next generation of gaming has begun. Well one could say that it officially began last fall with the launch of the Wii U. However, one could also argue that the Wii was still a ‘last’ last gen console and that the Wii U only brought Nintendo in line with the generation dominated by the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

But here we are, as expected. Sony Computer Entertainment has officially begun the next gen race – one in which Microsoft can be expected to drop its hat in the near future. So what do we know? We know it will launch this holiday season, an approximate 6 years after the launch of the PS3 in North America.

We know that its specs include an 8-core 64-bit x86 “Jaguar” CPU developed by AMD and a Radeon GPU with the capability of terrorizing televisions with 1.84 TFLOPS. We nkow that the PlayStation 4 includes a Blu-ray drive that spins game discs a brisk 6X and 8X for DVDs. Additional specs in the release note the, already revealed, 8GB of unified GDDR5 RAM along with 802.11n WiFi capability, USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 2.1 and ports for optical audio, HDMI and even legacy analog AV hook-ups.

And finally, we know the games:

Some noticeable omissions are a game from Naughty Dog (Makers of the Uncharted franchise), Battlefield 4 (teased in a demo released in the latest Medal of Honor game), and next gen versions of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 5.

Nevertheless, consider blood drawn. It is your move Microsoft. Make this a race to remember!