Speaking with MCV, Fergal Gara, SCE UK VP and MD Fergal Gara, said that retail sales will be a important “whenever the next cycle” of consoles are released, despite declines in sales over recent years. This means the PS4 won’t solely rely on digital purchases and cloud-based gaming.
According to the LinkedIn profile of Attila Vass, who used to be the Director of Research & Development at SCEA, the “Next Generation” PlayStation has been in development for almost two years. Picked up by VideoGamer, the profile claims that they were working on the graphics library and security on “Next Generation” platforms way back in August 2010.
Speaking last week to MCV, Andrew House, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, had an interesting response when asked about the PlayStation 4 and “why is now not the time to talk about a new PlayStation.” He also had quite a bit to say about the PlayStation Vita and how it’s doing in the market.
According to some “reliable” specs over on NeoGAF, the PS4 hardware is “more or less set in stone.” The forum post indicates that the PS4, codenamed “Orbis” will feature a AMD CPU with 4 cores and a AMD GPU capable of producing 1.8 teraflops. The RAM is also set at a rather low 2GB of GDDR5 RAM, and unlikely to be upgraded to 4GB.
Following the confirmation from Sony that PS4 games are in development, a Dutch website claims to have the official specs to the unannounced PlayStation 4. The specs include the CPU, APU, GPU and RAM the system may have. The leaked spec sheet also confirms the inclusion of a Blu-ray drive and HDMI 1.4.
In an interview with GameTrailers, Scott Rohde, Senior VP for SCEA, confirmed that a successor to the PS3 is coming, although he did not reveal when. He also confirmed that games are in development for the upcoming console. The console was rumored to make an appearance at E3 2012 this week, but it looks like Sony aren’t in a rush.
If the Wall Street Journal are to be believed, the successor to the PlayStation 3 is due in 2013, and was considered to be download-only at one point. WSJ sources claim that Sony “considered but ultimately rejected a download-only plan” for the PlayStation 4.
Its looks like a Software Engineering at SCEA has accidentally let slip that he has worked on maintaining a “voice chat library” for the PlayStation 4. Frederick Umminger listed the role on his LinkedIn profile, but was later corrected to reference the PlayStation 3.
Publishers have long claimed that second-hand games are hurting the industry, which has lead to the rise in online Passes to access multiplayer content as a way to make some money from second-hand games. The PS4 has been rumored to block used games, but Sony’s Jack Tretton said that he was “opposed to blocking used games.”
