Sony exec drops hint about Playstation 4 development

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In the past, console hardware companies do a technological refresh and release new game consoles every five or so years. However, the massive worldwide recession that happened in 2008 was a big reason why we haven't seen any new consoles from Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft by now (Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 console in 2005 while Sony and Nintendo launched the Playstation 3 and Wii consoles, respectively, in 2006). Nintendo does plan to release a new game console in 2012 and will reveal more details about the product at E3 in less than two weeks.

Now, Sony is hinting that it has started work on the successor to the Playstation 3. Venture Beat reports that during a conference call to discuss Sony's latest financial results, its chief financial officer Masaru Kato stated, "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.”

That is the most a Sony exec has stated in public about the next version of the Playstation. However, that doesn't mean that the company is dumping support for the PS3 anytime soon. Indeed it's likely that the PS3 will have as long of a shelf life, if not longer, than Sony's Playstation 2 console which is still being made and supported over 10 years after its launch in Japan in March 2000.

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We've been living with the current generation of systems for years now, and while Nintendo is showing off its next big thing at E3, there has been very little news about upcoming home consoles from Sony or Microsoft. That changed during a conference call with investors yesterday, when a Sony executive confirmed what most of us expected: a new console is in the works.

"For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," Sony's executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato said, as reported by Eurogamer, "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."

Kato also noted that it took too long for Sony's costs on the PlayStation 3 to come down, and said that it "is no longer thinkable to have a huge initial financial investment like that of the PS3." The PlayStation 3 launched at a higher cost than its competitors and was filled with cutting-edge hardware for the time, such as the Blu-ray drive and the Cell processor. It was expensive to make, carried a high price tag, and the company suffered for it.

EVERYONE is working on new hardware

This news isn't as big as it may sound at first, as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are all constantly looking at new technologies and developing ideas that may or may not ever see the light of day. Console development takes a very long time, and many ideas and concepts are dropped or added along the way; R&D on the "PS4" most likely began as soon as the PlayStation 3 was shipped.

The real news is that Sony may be focusing on using less-expensive components that can be ordered in larger quantities at a lower price. When you're trying to launch a system with as much new tech as the PlayStation 3, you're spending a lot of money on components, and you may be suffering from low yields as the high-end components are mass produced.

By using mature, off-the-shelf parts, Sony could cut costs and lower the price of the system, moves that would likely have little impact on the system's performance. While Sony often claimed the PS3 would be the only "true" high-definition console on the market, it took years for most games to match the graphical fidelity of the 360. You can argue about the possible power of both systems and that argument could get very technical very quickly, but the reality was that the PC-like architecture of the 360 allowed developers to come to grips with the hardware very quickly, while Sony's more intricate configuration only showed its power when developers took the time to learn its strengths and weaknesses.

In a world of so many multiplatform games, that's a trade-off Sony may be less likely to be comfortable with in its new system. We're doing some heavy speculation based on a few quotes, but the good news is clear: Sony may be learning.

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