In a conference call to investors today, Sony’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato was asked to explain the high research and development costs referenced in the recent financials.
“For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life,” he 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.”
His statements suggest, as many would have already assumed of course, that R&D is well underway on the next PlayStation platform. Whether that’s the PS4 is open to discussion, of course – could Kato just be referring to the NGP?
Nintendo are showing off their Wii successor at E3 in a couple of weeks, but we don’t expect Sony or Microsoft to follow suit.
Awayze
As long as PS4 has multitasking, new UI, better graphics/CPU/gpu, better online and ps1/ps2/ps3 compatibility. I will buy.
Also it’ll need a better method to add CPU and gpu to mobo as solder is too weak so it should be like a PC. Also dried up thermal paste and solder is a no go hence why ps3 got ylod.
rossthebassist
Maybe its just a new version of the ps3, lets face it they could make the PS3 SS (Super Slim) previous slims have used a power brick, the current ps3 slim is internal still, also the blu-ray drive is still a full size one, thiner blu-ray drive is a possibility sheading more weight from our PS3… this all in all would give sony a chance to do some hardware revisions to potentially strengthen security of the platform
BrainDiver
As long as there’s a significant increase in CPU/GPU power, heaps more ram and a bigger hard drive, PS3 backwards compatible and made for reliability then I’m in.
Assuming of course this is actually referencing the PS4.
hate_smith
I guess thats one way for them to recover alot of that money lost after the hack.
bacon_nuts
If it is the PS4 I want PS1, 2 and 3 games fully compatible. I’m sick of having to switch back to PS2 all the way in the other room with wired controllers and having to dig around for memory cards. Also just general upgrades to everything bla bla bla. But really, I’d rather they work out a way for PS1 & PS2 games to be compatible with PS3, weather it is by a firmware update or a small hardware attachment I can purchase – for a reasonable price..
Bladesteel
TODO: Look up random
Foxhound_Solid
Day one