[SONY]PlayStation 4 - In Development (Discussions)

[River26]

Courtesy of SONY's investor meeting today, they've confirmed that SONY's successor is in development.

The successor to the PlayStation 3 is currently in development, Sony confirmed during the company's investor meeting today.

Executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato was asked to explain the rising research and development costs for the company's fiscal year. "In the game segment, we have the NGP to launch later this year. So we have development expenses to be incurred for this product," he explained.

"For the home console, the PS3 still has a product life, but this is a platform business, so for the future platform - when we will introduce the product I cannot discuss - but development work is underway, so the costs are incurred there."

Perhaps SONY will shed some light on this during E3 during their press conference.

 

[GWOtaku]

This doesn't surprise me; this is basically Sony planning for the future. Yet a release date is surely 2 or 3 years off at least. The PS3 has plenty of life left. To me this news is comparable to the old Wii HD/Wii 2 rumors, except this comes from concrete info and not just informed speculation. I'll be beyond stunned if Sony surprises with an announcement at E3.

 

[Harlequinn]

I'm hoping it will play both PS2 and PS3 games.

 

[River26]

Well, not just PS2 or PS3. But that hopefully it plays all PlayStation games.

 

[suss2it]

I'm hoping it will play both PS2 and PS3 games.

Me too. My PS3 doesn't play PS2 games so now my new PS2 takes up unnecessary shelf space.

 

[unknown hero]

Backwards compatibility is a must, at least for ps3 games for online multiplayer.

 

[Bryangst]

Definitely needs to be backward compatible. I know Sony wants really wants to push current development, as well as future, but it would be great to see backward compatibility return. The option of being able to play past Sony games would be nice. Playing PS1 games on a current console isn't so important to me, as more become available on the Playstation Store. Though if I can avoid having to move from the living room to my bedroom to play PS2/PS1 games, I would like to. Plus these days I primarily use my PS2 just as a DVD player, though I do still have a few games I've yet to beat or start.

 

[SSJPabs]

Definitely needs to be backward compatible. I know Sony wants really wants to push current development, as well as future, but it would be great to see backward compatibility return. The option of being able to play past Sony games would be nice. Playing PS1 games on a current console isn't so important to me, as more become available on the Playstation Store. Though if I can avoid having to move from the living room to my bedroom to play PS2/PS1 games, I would like to. Plus these days I primarily use my PS2 just as a DVD player, though I do still have a few games I've yet to beat or start.

How is BC even possible without a huge increase in price?

 

[Bryangst]

I was pretty sure I didn't even make any mention of the cost of making it backwards compatible? Eh, I may have missed that amongst my own post apparently.

Either way backward compatibility is wishful thinking it costs money. This is why I made no mention of cost.

 

[Captain Highwind]

I doubt Sony is going to backwards compatible anything. Especially when they went to the trouble of hacking off the part of the motherboard that allows for PS2 capability since the manufacturing of PS3 Slims, at the least. Their business practices have been pretty headstrong down that vein with no intentions of stopping.

All except for whatever compatibility there is between the NGP and PSP, but that seems more like an immediate bridge kind of thing. For some reason they really want to forget about the PS2.

And I usually don't complain about Sony, but let's have one workable console model out the door this time, a'right?

 

[SSJPabs]

Either way backward compatibility is wishful thinking it costs money. This is why I made no mention of cost.

Ah. I didn't realize the sentence "Definitely needs to be backwards compatible." was an exercise in wishful thinking.

 

[Takao]

I imagine it could be pretty realistic that Sony would be able to develop a PS2 emulator for the PS4 given that the NGP (or PlayStation Vita) can emulate PSP games. It won't be perfect, but emulation never is.

However, I'd suspect PS3 games would be natively backwards compatible as I don't expect this new platform to have drastic architecture changes from the PS3, but rather a newer revision of the current internals. It makes sense as it would keep R&D costs down on this new platform given the absolutely insane R&D costs the PS3 incurred.

Edit: And just a few hours later rumors about IBM and Sony working on a new Cell architect add weight to my theories.

 

[ShadowGUN]

False alarm. Apparently the western media jump the gun on this one. Sony wasn't talking about the PS4 but PSP successor the Playstation Vita.

 

[Dreyfus]

Playstation Vita? Is that the new name, or is it still code named NGP? Somewhat off-topic in hindsight, but backwards compatibility is not as expensive as a lot of people seem to think, at least for PS2 games.

 

[Trevor]

I doubt Sony is going to backwards compatible anything. Especially when they went to the trouble of hacking off the part of the motherboard that allows for PS2 capability since the manufacturing of PS3 Slims, at the least. Their business practices have been pretty headstrong down that vein with no intentions of stopping.

Which was pretty stupid, considering that Sony still has the PS2 system and games. Just walk into any Wal=Mart and you'll still see a section for PS2 (although not as big as it once was) games in their cabinets, and there will also be PS2 games in their $20 dollar game cube.

 

[suss2it]

Which was pretty stupid, considering that Sony still has the PS2 system and games. Just walk into any Wal=Mart and you'll still see a section for PS2 (although not as big as it once was) games in their cabinets, and there will also be PS2 games in their $20 dollar game cube.

Now it actually makes sense that the newer PS3s lack backward compatibility. This way Sony can sell you a PS3 and a PS2.

 

[Wounded_Dragon]

Now it actually makes sense that the newer PS3s lack backward compatibility. This way Sony can sell you a PS3 and a PS2.

I thought this was discussed already? The profit margins for the PS3 weren't there but they were for the PS2 when BC was first removed. Nowadays though the reason BC probably won't be included will be for either Sony or the other companies trying to sell you the old games once again as downloadables.

 

[Trevor]

I thought this was discussed already? The profit margins for the PS3 weren't there but they were for the PS2 when BC was first removed. Nowadays though the reason BC probably won't be included will be for either Sony or the other companies trying to sell you the old games once again as downloadables.

But Sony and the other companies are still making games for the PS2. Not as many as a few years ago, but still quite a few over the course of a year.

 

[Captain Highwind]

The reason for PS2 games being repackaged is for HD purposes. There's no way it will lead to a full-scale library, but cleaning up PS2 graphics probably isn't as taxing as say, doing that for PS1 games, which is why Sony really doesn't care about offering most of the PS1 library as it is with a little bit of upscale filtering.

So yeah, it's a cheap marketing ploy that probably won't go far but I can see why they did it, and there is a market for the higher rated games that tried to be HD at the time (Shadows of the Colossus, God of War, etc.)

And PS2 games are definitely sitting in retail as clearout.