Hiroshi Sakamoto doesn’t directly work at Sony Computer Entertainment, but he does work at Sony and he’s pretty high up the chain. So, when he speaks, you should listen. Especially when he’s speaking about next generation PlayStation consoles.
The translation seems pretty clear cut – with at least two confirming its accuracy, although you’ll have to forgive any mistakes. Essentially he was asked about Sony working on a new PlayStation, and whether we’ll have some news about it soon.
“That’s still a big secret,” he replied, “but our friends at PlayStation are getting ready. For now I can only say that we’re focused in the gaming event “E3″, scheduled for June.”
However, he then adds that “an announcement can be by then, or even before, in May.”
He’s then asked whether that’s a major announcement or not. He agrees, saying “in that time we expect to deliver great news” and adds that “we must wait until May at least.”
It’s been widely discussed that Sony will announced the PS4 just before E3. That’ll get the groundwork out of the way so that June can be all about the games – a smart tactic, and one that most people seem to agree will be the best way forward for Sony.
Bizarrely, some sites chased headlines by saying there’ll be a PS4 announcement in February – we’ve already discussed why this will not be the case. May is much more likely.
What will the PS4 be all about? Have a read.
wonkey-willy
and just how much is this behemoth going to cost us ?
Kennykazey
As long as it’s out in less than 18 months, I don’t care when it’s announced.
2ofclubs
Not sure how excited I am about this. As much as a new bit of tech is fun, I just get the feeling that the best generation is behind us. Games are surely going to cost even more to make and going to have to sell loads to break even. Given the amount of devs that have gone under recently (yes I know the recession hasn’t helped) I imagine there’s going to be even less diversity in titles. Just the big players will get a chance and perhaps the smaller indie teams with download only titles.
Obviously it all depends on the development costs but it seems like people won’t want to take the chance to invest in a title so who knows how many great games, maybe already have, and will be left unmade.
TheDemocrodile
This year is shaping up to be very exciting from a hardware perspective.
I love the fact that we will soon see whether Sony have learned their lessons from this generation and whether MS have learnt from the reliability issues their older designed 360s suffered from.
Either way a gigantic spec bump is sooo welcome right now, quite how Devs can make the games they do with the RAM restriction and ancient processors is quite stunning.
I`m most interested in the newcomers however.
The Nvidia Shield is a fascinating device but if sales figures for the PSV are any indicator then it would seem they have a task convincing the public that their device is right for their messenger bags.
Ouya is an interesting concept but having used Android since 2.1 im not sure whether it lends itself to a console setup.
Its the SteamBox that i feel will come out of left field with a considerable impact, sure its designed around a linux base and where some will argue you can port Win 7/ onto it that isn’t something the average console user will do or expect to do upon buying a new unit but Steam comes with over 50 million active user accounts.
If it manages to get even 10% of those to jump your looking at millions of sales and a fundamental shift in what people will be using their consoles for (if you’ve got some vision) and lets face it Valve will be porting games in an absolute frenzy.
Oh….and its MODULAR!!! Wooooooo! POWER!!!! *ahem*.
So yeah, exciting times ahead!
Bilbo_bobbins
I’ll get excited when it happens. With Sony you can’t trust them doing anything remotely normal
skibadee
ready for nextgen.
The Von Braun
@KeRaSh: ‘In response to ‘How is that a con?’.
Who said anything about it being a con?.Horrible ports on Sony platforms were happening years before PS3, only to look at Playstation versions of Duke Nukem 3D and Hexen compared to the Sega Saturn versions.The Saturn, despite being an utter mess in terms of hardware and software tools, not only pulled off better versions of those 2, but had Quake at a time 7 developers had tried and failed to get it running on Playstation (was’nt until Hammer head ported Quake 2 over system had a Quake game).
Not played Oblivion, or Burnout Paradise or Jericho or…basically ANY of the early PS3 games that were written for the PS3, (not just a best fit conversion of 360 code) then i take it? or looked at Valve-initally HATED PS3 hardware, would never code on it, Orange Box given to sub-development team of E.A to do, years later, PS3=Fantastic, Portal 2 etc etc.
Been poor ports of PC games to the Dreamcast, yet that was using common tech, said to be easy to code for a rushed game is always going to be a rushed game, no matter how ‘easy’ the hardware is to write for, day 1 patches on PS3+360 are now the norm.
IF Sony played it smart and had custom hardware that was easy to get common middle ware engines running on (Say Unreal 4 Engine or Crytek 3 Eng) then you would’nt see the issues PS3 has had, fact was, for so long developers coded 360 version, ported to PS3.
And Skyrim? i have on 360, just like i did Fallout 3 (GOTY Ed) and come on, your not telling me they are optimised master pieces, both bugged to hell and as for the poor Skyrim port? thats due to way PS3 Ram is split, compared to 360’s.
I’d rather coders wrote for specific hardware strengths and were given the time needed to bug test a game, respond to play testing feedback etc, but that’s never going to happen, is it? developers releasing patches to fix bugged code on the basics like Auto-Saves, then releasing a patch to fix the bugs the patch brought.
xdarkmagician
I’m guessing a new vita announcement is what we’ll be getting.
TSBonyman
I’m definitely looking forward to hearing more about PS4 – i’m just not sure if i’ll like everything that i hear, will wait and see.