The Playstation 4

[Correction]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-playstation-4

Sony is working on PlayStation 4
by Robert Purchese

Sony has confirmed that work on a "future platform" to follow the PS3 "is already under way".

Sony's executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato made the revelation on a conference call to investors today. He was asked to explain increased research and development (R&D) costs.

"For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," he said, "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's comments are in direct contrast those of Sony Computer Entertainment boss Kaz Hirai's. Hirai said, three months ago in March, that "a near-future PS4 or next-generation home console is not something that we are even debating now".

Hirai stressed that Sony wasn't "even at the half-way point" in PS3's lauded 10-year plan.

This console cycle may be destined to last longer than previous generations, but there are already rumours of top-tier publishing partners receiving prototype dev kits of Microsoft's new Xbox.

Meanwhile Nintendo has plans to formerly unveil Wii 2 - codenamed Project Cafe - at E3 next month.

Weird timing on this announcement, they can't really hope to steal the Cafe thunder with 'oh yeah we're working on something cool too' since it'll be 2-3 years before we see anything that can be put on a projection screen. Maybe they were only interested in beating Microsoft to the 'oh yeah we're doing the same things Nintendo is' announcement.

[Kaelan?]

I don't know, the timing isn't that odd. Wasn't Kinect (back when it was called Natal) like 5 years of research before they finally came up with a finished product? I don't know how often consoles usually are in R&D but I figure it's probably also along those lines

[Seanr]

not a knock on you, but no shit Sony is working on something new... was anyone really thinking they were gonna start developing the PS4 a year or two from now?

[Lordender]

In the future:

Nintendo: Here's zelda and mario on project cafe!

Crowd: HOLY SHIT, THATS BAD ASS, OMG.


Microsoft: Here's Halo on the next Xbox platform.

Crowd: HOLY SHIT, OMG!

Sony: Here's PS4, it does everything!

Crowd: umm.. will my creditcard info be safe on PSN?

Sony: fuck... /facepalm.

[Correction]

not a knock on you, but no shit Sony is working on something new... was anyone really thinking they were gonna start developing the PS4 a year or two from now?

The news here is that this gives us a better timetable of when to expect the PS4. The fact that R&D is spending money means an announcement likely in 2013, with consoles shipping the year after.

Start saving up your nine hundred and ninety nine US dollars.

[Shojin]

I'm just hoping they don't start charging for online features. I wouldn't be surprised if they did though.

[Katlan]

Um... the fact they are working on a new system is no surprise or new news. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony have working on new systems, just no company aside Nintendo is considering to push theirs out anytime soon. Sony and Microsoft both want their current consoles to have a few more years in them. It's been stated by Microsoft and Sony many times already.

But ya, you can't develop a new system in a year, it takes time so you gotta start working on that tech early. Don't even see how this is a PS4 thread, it's only mentioning that all major console developers are working on a new system.. derp. old news is old

[aurik]

Kinect wasn't in dev for 5 years, sorry.

But yeah they start the console dev several years ahead of any launch. So this is not really news.

[Correction]

Don't even see how this is a PS4 thread, it's only mentioning that all major console developers are working on a new system.. derp. old news is old

When something changes from common, unconfirmed suspicion to announced fact, it's news. Kazzy's denial of any internal PS4 discussion 3 months ago to 'oh yeah our costs are rising because R&D is scoping out our new hardware' is news. Even if all that we learn at E3 is no more than what was announced today (i.e. 'we're working on it') this counts as gaming news.

Deal with it.

[Correction]

In related news:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...sony_earnings/

Sony: No Plans For PS3-type Investment For Future Consoles

Games division turns profit due to PS3 cost reductions and sales.

Posted on 05.27.2011 at 01:29, by Anoop Gantayat

Sony's massive initial expenditures for the PlayStation 3 lead to years of losses. This is something that apparently won't be repeated for future platforms.

During an investors briefing today (via Nikkei), Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato was asked if Sony expects its games division to continue to maintain its recent profitability. Different from the major losses of Sony Group as a whole, the company's games business turned profitable over the fiscal year.

Kato noted that the main factor in the losses for the past few years has been the big difference in sales price and cost for the PS3 system. Sony even spent billions to create its own semi conductor facilities.

This is something that won't happen in the future. The semiconductor business is changing, said Kato. "It is no longer thinkable to have a huge initial financial investment like that of the PS3."

Sony's Network Products & Services division, which overseas the PlayStation business, saw a 0.4% increase in sales to 1,579,300 million yen. Last year's operating loss of 833,000 million yen was turned into an operating profit of 356,000 million yen.

PS3 hardware cost reductions and increased software sales were major factors in the turnaround.

Sony shipped 14.3 million PS3 systems, 8 million PSP systems and 2.64 million PS2 systems over the year. Software shipments were 147,900,000 for PS3, 46,600,000 for PSP and 16,400,000 for PS2.

For the current year, Sony forecasts 15 million PS3 systems, 6 million PSP systems and 4 million PS2 systems.

[Hiryo]

To prevent losses on the system because of its MSRP and the hardware, up the price!

Hopefully the hardware isn't too expensive with today's standards.

[Souj]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-playstation-4



Weird timing on this announcement

wasn't a planned announcement, really. They were at a conference and their investors asked why more money was being poured into R&D.

[Kaelan?]

Kinect wasn't in dev for 5 years, sorry.

But yeah they start the console dev several years ahead of any launch. So this is not really news.

They were doing research on the technology they use on it for a long time. I can't find the interview I remember watching that talked specifically about Kinect, but:



The point anyway was that the hardware side can spend a lot of time in R&D stages, more so than you'd see for a game, so even if the plan was to not release anything for 4-6 years it's still not early at all to start working on it now

[aurik]

Except that they bought the tech in like 2008. I remember because I was at a trade show in the booth right next to the company that they ended up buying a few months later

[Kaelan?]

What? Gates had been talking about it since at least 2007
http://allthingsd.com/20100615/kinect-digital-home/

[Not Kuno]

Get rid of gimmicky bullshit, bring back backwards compatibility.

[aurik]

What? Gates had been talking about it since at least 2007
http://allthingsd.com/20100615/kinect-digital-home/

Talking about computer vision (which has been talked about since the 1960s) is not the same thing as talking about the specific tech that they built it on, which I'm telling you they bought after the NVISION 2008 conference.

Because I was there, watching them play Hole In The Wall with a time-of-flight camera. All day long.

That article was published in 2010 by the way.

[Kaelan?]

I'm not sure why the date the article was published matters, it's quoting something he said in a conference in 2007. IF you want an older article:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-to-outdo-wii/

[Kyo]

It already has no games.

[ArchDizzle]

Only you nigga's could turn a PS4 thread into an argument over how long Microsoft was working on Kinect.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk