Sony to launch PlayStation 4 in 2012, say moles
Taking the initiative?
Sony will begin producing the PlayStation 4 -equipped with Kinect-style movement control tech - by the end of this year, and will launch it in 2012, it has been claimed.
The rumours come from sources within Taiwan's component production world, who told Digitimes that Sony is readying a surprise launch of a new console, with a planned shipment of at least 20 million units next year.
According to the unnamed throats, Sony's Taiwanese PS3 manufacturers, Foxconn and Pegatron, are behind the next model's assembly and will incorporate movement-based control similar to Microsoft's Xbox add-on, Kinect.
The leak contradicts recent comments from Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), who said Sony wouldn't begin discussing a next-generation PlayStation for "quite some time". That standpoint was reiterated last week by Sony Computer Entertainment International's CEO-to-be Andrew House.
A bonkers move? Possibly - or a bold one that would put Sony ahead in the race to release a next-gen machine.
Most pundits assume the Wii U, which will be released next year, will be followed by the next Xbox, rumoured to be due for an E3 2012 debut. It's a viewpoint supported by Sony's official comments which point towards the PS4 once again being the last of the next-gen machines to hit shelves.
However, as long as Sony incorporates PS3 backwards compatibility, an improved console could be on the cards, especially with all this talk of Virtual Reality headsets.
Unfortunately it's all Taiwanese whispers for now, though. ®
COMMENTS
Keyboards? Try Killzone 3 with Move
FPS with pads not great
FPS with mouse - pretty good, keyboard - I do not like
Got KZ3 and it plays brilliantly with Move - the navigation controller is for moving the character and the Move IS the gun.
And it is a lot of fun
That depends
Assuming rumours to be true (and they're often not), if Sony are talking up 3D, VR etc. then what they really need is something with a bit more kick to it, but at the same time they don't want to dump the existing install base
So a PS4 could really be a PS3+ - faster GPU, CPU, more memory, other bells and whistles but essentially an iteration of the PS3. Games could detect they're running on the faster machine and act accordingly. Perhaps it means they boost their framerate and go 1080p, that kind of thing so the experience is tangibly better without breaking backwards compatibility.
I reckon they mean the Vita.
The hand held - due in the new year - so what do you think?
Unlikely
Unless it's a new version of the PS3 with motion control, I doubt that Sony could actually afford to develop and release a new console at the moment. They've taken a massive hammering financially recently and it's always been the perceived wisdom that the way for MS to beat them at the console game would be to accelerate the life cycle.
