Playstation CEO Andrew House has confirmed his firm’s plans to keep its next-generation home console under wraps until a major technological breakthrough in terms of graphics is attained.
Prior to the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles earlier this month, there was speculation that the company would be spilling minor details about Playstation 4 and even demonstrate the latest hardware during its media briefing.
However, the latest edition of E3 ended without a single word about the next generation console by Sony.
In a recent interview to MCV, House ended the mystery behind Sony’s silence on the new hardware, explaining that Sony had no intention of talking about Playstation 4 until attaining a technological advancement that would make it possible to show a significant leap over Playstation 3.
“The right time to talk about new advances in hardware is when you can demonstrate a significant leap on the current experience, and something that is going to be attractive,” he said. “That remains our philosophy. Beyond that we have nothing to say at this point.”
The group chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) left no doubt in the mind of gamers that Sony planned on keeping its focus on Playstation 3 for the time being, allowing the owners of the current Sony console to breathe a sigh of relief as the arrival of a new console meant a gradual demise of Playstation 3.
Sony has been building up a reputation for showing major graphical technological leap with the release of each of its three Playstation consoles. The consistency shown by the firm to meet and sometimes even exceed the expectations of the company has led gamers to believe that the next console will not fail to wow them either.
Sony also seems to be aware of the fact that the next Playstation needs to have a strong appeal to allure gamers and make them willing to move ahead instead of sticking to their current consoles. This will involve the spending of cash and thus the new console will need to have a strong enough appeal to entice gamers into doing that.
Despite Sony’s patience and optimism, many industry analysts are of the opinion that the benchmark set by Playstation 3 in terms of a graphical leap over its predecessors will not be met by the future consoles. While the visuals will be undoubtedly impressive, the apple will not fall too far away from the tree, a view that is shared by Nintendo Satoru Iwata.
“If they decide to increase the spec numbers, will the consumers be able to realise the difference enough so that they can understand it’s much superior to today’s machine,” said Iwata.
Both Sony and Microsoft are expected to demonstrate the power of their next-generation consoles in next year’s E3.
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