14 DAY TRIAL // Video game hardware manufacturer and game publisher Sony has confirmed that it is working on a new version of its home console, which the public has traditionally called the PlayStation 4, although the company has not offered any details on what it will offer to players and has not talked about when it might be launched.
Masaru Kato, who is an executive vice president at the Chief Financial Officer at Sony Corporation, has talked to investors about the future of the company and said, “The PS3 still has product life, but this is a platform business. So for the future platform, when will we introduce it? What product? I can not discuss that. But development work is already underway.”
It's not clear for how long Sony has been working on PlayStation 4 and it's not clear whether any more details will be offered in the coming months, perhaps at the E3 trade show.
Sony has traditionally been unwilling to talk about its hardware development for the future, only confirming the existence of the New Generation Portable aka the PlayStation Portable 2 after a number of extensive reports on the device were leaked through the gaming press.
It seems that a significant part of the Research and Development budget that Sony has set aside for next year will be linked to the creation of the PlayStation 4 but Kato added that “It is no longer thinkable to have a huge initial financial investment like that of the PS3.”
For the PlayStation 3, Sony worked with IBM for some time to create the Cell processor, and for a long time costs associated with R&D and manufacturing costs have lead to the Sony gaming division posting losses.
Important cost reductions associated with the PS3 in the last few years have meant that recently the gaming division at Sony has posted a profit of 435.5 million dollars, a good performance when taking into account that last year it posted a loss.