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[dj2oon]

Sony Next-Gen PlayStation 4 in development?

Next-generation PlayStation is under consideration and those who are waiting anxiously for it are now hopefully relaxed by this news. Sony’s CFO Masaru Kato stated that the company is losing $3.1 billion annually specially after an earthquake. But he also gave and hint by saying:

    “For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life, but this is a platform business, so for the future platform – when we’ll be introducing what product I cannot discuss that – but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there”

Probably we'll see this by the last quarter...

[Superb Joe]

huge news, who would ever have guessed that a market leader in a field with a cyclical product model would develop a new product

[alastair]

I hope it comes soon, since hopefully it will raise quality of PC titles.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

there is no information about it yet so i don't see the point in a thread about it. what is there to talk about -- guessing what it'll be like? at least with the wii2 we know something about its controller

also i still haven't played most of the ps2 games i bought, and i sure ain't buying a ps3 or ps4 until i do

[i wanna be the guy]

psn store? nah we dont need that up
lets start on ps4

[BlueSweatshirt]

Unless Sony is doing a major paradigm shift with this new console I see no reason for them to develop a whole new platform. They just released the Move, which hasn't even came into maturity in the slightest way yet. Also, the PS3 software seems perfectly fine. It's a major hit for developers to have to take the time to learn a new platform SDK-- I hope with their new console they at least keep the same software.

[Superb Joe]

Unless Sony is doing a major paradigm shift with this new console I see no reason for them to develop a whole new platform. They just released the Move, which hasn't even came into maturity in the slightest way yet. Also, the PS3 software seems perfectly fine. It's a major hit for developers to have to take the time to learn a new platform SDK-- I hope with their new console they at least keep the same software.

hardware development takes years, hope this helps

[Gimym JIMBERT]

Also they start as soon as the current one have been released, no big news here.

[Kramlack]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was more of a post-Wii2 scramble announcement. Same as the Microsoft announcement. I want a new console gen as much as the next person, but it just seems like they're trying not to fall behind, which in a sense is ridiculous because the Wii2 will probably only be as powerful as current gen consoles.

Sony (and Microsoft) should really just take the time to step back and focus on their consoles at hand. Especially in Sony's case after their recent PSN fiasco, a new console really shouldn't be a top priority.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

does anyone even still care about the "power" of consoles? i thought the wii showed that people don't care about that anymore (since it sold the best and was the weakest in power)

[Sakar]

does anyone even still care about the "power" of consoles? i thought the wii showed that people don't care about that anymore (since it sold the best and was the weakest in power)

Some people, yes. Not really enough to make a big impact IMO.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

does anyone even still care about the "power" of consoles? i thought the wii showed that people don't care about that anymore (since it sold the best and was the weakest in power)

indie devs should care, more power = less man-hours needed to get a game running on it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

i'm not sure that's true. the more power, the higher the standards will be. no matter how powerful something is devs will attempt to 'push it to its limits. the increased power of consoles has not decreased the man hours required to make games, at all. it's increased the man hours and the team sizes almost exponentially. average team size for an atari game was about 1 person, for an nes game was about 6 people, for a snes about 20, etc. etc., and now we're into about a hundred

[increpare]

indie devs should care, more power = less man-hours needed to get a game running on it.

Depends on how easy it is to utilize that power, and whether or not one has good use for it, dunnit?  

[Glaiel-Gamer]

i'm not sure that's true. the more power, the higher the standards will be.

since when do "indie devs" care about technical standards? I don't think braid or super meat boy or bit trip or whatnot's game would be any different on a more powerful console, just that technical issues (ram usage, disc access, etc) during development would be less of a problem.

Anyway fine if that statement doesn't work for you, more video RAM = good for high-res 2D games.

[Aquin]

I admit to the following:

1) The PS3 is going to lose perhaps billions in legal fees after the recent debacle.
2) The Playstation division has been in the red for five years.
3) The primary reason, to improve market penetration of Blu-ray, sorta failed.

That and some other minor things made me think they wouldn't even bother with a PS4.  It doesn't seem like a move likely to win over stakeholders.  Seeing has how they've been losing a lot of the market to Samsung and other manufacturers in their *important* divisions, you think they would focus on getting back what they can.

From an investor's point of view, the announcement of the PS4 kinda would urge me to sell sell sell.  As a publicly-traded company, their highest priority (sadly) is to improve market speculation of their brand.  I don't...really think the PS4 is gonna help.

But here we are, so clearly my armchair economics has failed me.