Kaz Hirai hints the PS4 will release after Xbox 720

@49: Windows is hardware independent and that’s pretty much why MS beat Apple in the war over the PC.

The company to watch is Valve, although their pockets aren’t quite as deep as everyone seems to think they are.

@44 Yeah, I have to admit they are arrogant, but who wouldn’t after the success the PS2 turned out to be? Anyway, this next-gen I’ll just go with a nice combo consisting of my PC, running my beloved Steam, and PS4/Xbox720/Nintendo. I want to be as open-minded as one can be.

I’m also considering a Steambox, as my PC’s really running out of steam (see with I did there? Huh? Huh? )

@52

Their view of consoles are the equivalent of Japanese devs view of RPGs to me.

@48:

Actually, now that I think about it, I remember what Sony was like with devs pre-PS2…

I think you’re right.

@51 Again I agree, I guess that’s a pretty fair example.

But a lot of people are questioning whether Microsoft actually has any relevance today.

You can look at a company like Apple that are doing the opposite and making over ten times as much doing it, or you can look at Google that are able to outdo Microsoft by rolling out a new product every week without breaking a sweat – the successes of which fully offset their failures.

… And then you have Microsoft, which just looks ancient in terms of the way their pipeline operates. The whole company exists on one product, which hasn’t really gone anywhere with the latest iteration.

It’s not really synonymous with success anymore.

My bet for the next five years:

1. Xbox 720 w/ Xbox LIVE
2. Piston w/ Steam
3. Apple TV w/ App Store

If Apple can ship a motion/gesture controlled device that allows people to play Cut The Rope/Fruit Ninja/Angry Birds built into a Smart TV that also houses Apple TV functionality, then Nintendo is fucked and no amount of Mario or Zelda rehashes would save them.

As for Sony, I reckon they’re hideously over-exposed across all their divisions and can’t see them becoming best-in-class in any one of them.

Their stock has been downgraded to junk bond status (source: http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/22/investing/fitch-sony-panasonic-downgrade/index.html); their broadcast content plans don’t exactly inspire confidence, are LTTP and seem rather cumbersome in comparison with Apple and Microsoft’s more nimble solutions (source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sony/9779822/Sony-planning-multi-channel-TV-service.html); and Sony’s consumer electronics business – especially their televisions – are struggling to compete with more agile rivals (source: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-once-vaunted-tech-firms-struggle-onslaught.html).

I can tell you that it would be a huge relief for videogames creators if they only had to develop for two blockbuster-experience type platforms (Windows/Steam and Xbox/XBLA) rather than having to worry about Sony as well, so at the first sniff of failure expect the platform to be abandoned faster than you can say “Jaguar” or “Dreamcast”.

EDIT: Plus the XMB is a shit OS. Metro’s not very much better, true, but c’mon… the XMB is just terrible, terrible design.

@55: Microsoft have so much money it’s silly. It’s almost impossible to think of a scenario where they could over-expose themselves.

Stop criticising someone’s favourite game company otherwise they will type swear words at you and patronise you and maybe do a “lol” at you

@56,57 Don’t you mean the Steam Box?

What would make you pick Piston? It’s expensive, and it’s not powerful enough to look half as good as the next gen consoles, or current era PCs.

Thing is, Microsoft don’t have to over-expose themselves. I don’t predict a quick death, I’m expecting a long slow one.

A company that isn’t growing is a company that’s dying, and Microsoft isn’t growing.

Obviously there’s always the chance of a Steve Jobs intervention, but what I see is a big fat elephant that doesn’t know where to go, and isn’t smart enough to figure it out on it’s own.

@56

Apple TV with integrated gaming software and Kinect style interface built in?

1080p or will it compete with 4K?

For an Apple set like that and 46″ plus (sweet spot for most living rooms) you’ve got to be talking 2 or 3 grand?

Also, will games and Apps have to have different resolution and reprogramming for gesture based gaming?

It could work but I fail to see how that compares with a 200 quid home console.

Also, can you plug consoles into the Apple TV? People would end up with both surely?

If they locked out other consoles no one would want one in there front room. It’s tricky to see how it would work really.

Maybe an Apple set top box?

I don’t see Nintendo going anywhere.

Not for a gen or two. Wanna keep in mind JPN and handhelds. I could see a day when instead of a home console, their Gameboy plugs into a TV via HDMI Mini. But I have a very hard time seing them w/o a Gameboy at least for JPN.

I highly doubt they will be a “winner” or global sales leader in “next gen”. I don’t think that is their goal. Only to sell games. And I think they do impressivly well in that area. If/when the day comes that they can not sell games because their hardware install base doesn’t allow it to, then I see them going game only. But I think we at least 10 years from that.

And when we get to that point, it may well be what everyone does. Takes their streaming games service across multiple devices. Might even get to a point where all you buy is the controler. Because the controler has on borad storage, and allows you to stream your games from the Net, and the controler can transmit your game to the TV via a wireless usb dongle(kind of the way WiiUs Gamepad displays an image). I am thinking sooner or later, the box won’t even matter.

But in the near future, who is most likly to bow out of gaming … take your pick. But my pick is Sony.

@ 60: I really have zero insight into the Apple TV, just rumours. A set-top box (over and above the current Apple TV) seems unlikely – everything I’ve heard points to a full-blown iTV. So that’s all pure speculation on my part and yes, you’ve spotted some obvious flaws. It’s easy to tell when I’m speculating and when I’m talking about stuff I actually know about!

I’m just confident that Apple will own the space that the Wii held over in this gen. The WiiU’s will not repeat the Wii’s success, latest thing I heard is that Nintendo are considering making it a stop-gap console, which would incur a helluva lot of costs all-round. All seems a bit futile and I think they’ll be 100% digital – maybe with a dedicated handheld – within the next four years.

@59: Yes, I do. Sorry, was getting jumbled up between codenames. And yes, MS aren’t growing – but if they successfully own the “universal box-under-the-telly that does everything” space and monopolises how that market – not to mention its channel – operates… well, there’s a lot of growth right there.

@ 61: To a certain degree I agreed with you. Only a fool counts Nintendo out… but they’ve never looked so precarious as now. I can completely see them creating a dedicated handheld that plugs into a TV, though – that would make a lot of sense.

I very much doubt Sony are going to bow out of gaming for a long time, the playstation has made them a household name that millions of people trust and buy their other products because of it… me included… I don’t like Microsofts products but it would be a sad day if any of the big 3 left at all

Hi I’m a long time reader and first time writer to this site, so hi everybody.

I regards to this article I think everyone is missing the most obvious thing, I think this has nothing to do with Sony being worried that ms will see its tech in the ps4 and improve on it, and everything to do with price and releases date. If Sony come out first and say for example “hey the ps4 will come out in may 2014 for £400 and then ms say “we’ll the Xbox 720 is coming out in November 2013 for £300″ then Sony will be screwed and will not be able to backtrack. Where as if Sony wait for ms to announce the launch info and price Sony then can change, by dropping the price and maybe move the date forward, but if Microsoft announce a 2014 release and a £400 price tag then Sony can still keep to there original plan. What do you think?

@62

I have a feeling the Wii U will last about 3 – 4 years then a Super Wii U may come out…

Keep the Wii U going as a budget console, who knows…

Maybe like you say they’ll just go the handheld route?

Either way, there games are generally less ‘transferable’, the gameplay elements are usually tied in in someway to the hardware, kind of makes them unique experiences.

I could play Uncharted on 360, I could play Zombie U on PS3 for example.

@63 I don’t really see it. I just checked their reports to make sure I wasn’t way off, but in terms of the business they do, gaming isn’t an awesome gig for Microsoft.

The year before last, they made 1.3 billion on gaming, but they spent 7.5 billion to make it.

(Last year it was much much worse, but I’m guessing that has everything to do with the next console)

In comparison, they spent 19 billion to make 12,2 on Windows.

I really think Microsoft gets way too much credit for their gaming division. It doesn’t recieve the same care and attention it once got (for obvious reasons, looking at those numbers) and I’d be very surprised if they somehow see the next Xbox as a blockbuster device.

“I can tell you that it would be a huge relief for videogames creators if they only had to develop for two blockbuster-experience type platforms (Windows/Steam and Xbox/XBLA) rather than having to worry about Sony as well, so at the first sniff of failure expect the platform to be abandoned faster than you can say “Jaguar” or “Dreamcast”.”

with all due respect this is some pretty dumb stuff. if you think third parties in this day and age want to support only 1 or 2 platforms you are out of your mind. i don’t even know why you would want that. competition is good and it isn’t going to cost a lot to port stuff this time around with both consoles to be similar this time around. even with a massive screw up initially with the ps3 everybody continued to develop for ps3. the ps4 is being made with a lot of western input(naughty dog, sony santa monica) this time around so i expect the experience to be a lot better this time around. they aren’t going anywhere.

Ever since kaz has become CEO he has made a lot of moves where he is pushing to reduce or eliminate the divisions which are losing money.

So far Kaz has done a fair bit to get them in the right direction. Here’s a list of various transactions they’ve done over the past year:

-Sony bought out of the mobile joint venture with Ericsson for $1.47 billion dollars
-Sony sold off its shares in the LCD joint venture with Samsung for $939 million dollars
-Sony sold off its shares in the LCD joint venture with Sharp for $125 million dollars
-Sony buys EMI publishing for $2.2 billion dollars
-Sony announces a joint venture with Panasonic to develop next gen OLED TV displays
-Sony has pledged to invest about a billion dollars into CMOS development over the next year.
-Sony spun off its small to medium LCD business to join with Hitachi and Toshiba to form Japan Display Inc.
-Sony sold off some of its chemical business to the Japanese government for $730 million dollars.
-Sony bought Gaikai for $380 million dollars
-Sony invested $397 million into Olympus
-Sony is selling its US HQ for $1.1 billion now

the above is from someone’s post on neogaf. the forecast is to post a decent profit for this quarter so they are on the right track. i am not saying they will come back but they are definitely showing signs

This year is where MS puts its master plan into action though.

The Xbox was always going to be a media centre.

With the 720 and Kinect 2, Windows 8, Smartglass, Windows Phone and strong connections with the big western dev companies, i think it’s ready to tie up all the loose ends now.

Basically, I think they will dominate next gen, especially once they get exclusive COD stuff going across all their media platforms.

@67

Nice list by the way, good to see that info all in one place.

@67 Those are pretty much moves he was forced to make. Not doing so would completely cripple the company.

If you look at the division that includes the PS3, they’ve gone from a 32 million dollar profit for fiscal 2010 (May 2011) to a 2.8 billion dollar loss for 2011 (May 2012).

And that’s for a division with revenue of more than 43 and 38 billion for those years respectively.

Let’s at least agree that it is still a very serious situation, that won’t be resolved just by making a few cuts and scraping some equity together.

despite the fact my PC may be 10x stronger than Ps4 and 720, i cant wait for the release of ps4.

@ 67: Competition is good for the consumer… not so much for the content creator. It’d be like movie companies having to support both blu-ray and HD-DVD formats (only a lot more costly due to differences in production methods). It’s a nightmare putting out so many SKUs for a single product, especially when you factor in special editions and collector’s editions.

A one console future is the preferred option for all third=-parties – considering how much next gen games cost to make, any dev savings would be warmly received.

@dsb
ofcourse there is no denying they are not in a great position. with regards to that 2.8 billion is believe it is over exaggerated a bit in the sense that Sony just tied of all the losses in that one quarter just to have a fresh start. all i am saying is they are not in as bad a position as many around here tend to think. if you hear the nonsense some people post here regarding not being able to afford more ram or them not having money to release a ps4 etc… you would think they are filing for bankruptcy tomorrow.
@gheritt
competition is good for content creators too… you don’t want to be at the mercy of ms or sony or apple where they start to make more demands and higher royalties etc to have content on their system. there are a lot of problems you heard this gen with regards to strict policies especially by microsoft this gen when it comes to patches and updates and release schedules etc…

if it is gonna cost a lot to make next gen consoles why would you want to limit yourself to one console? i don’t want to be in a situation where the only console around is from MS and i have to pay 100$ for xbox live(i knotw it is 50 or 60) but what is top stop them from going higher if they are the only dog around. this will limit the market and then less sales for third parties trying to sell their high cost next gen games.

a one console future will never happen… if you make money doing it then someone will always come along trying to steal a piece of the pie

@ 73: First-party policies are actually less restrictive next gen, especially around Title Updates. Still think they’ll find another way to milk third-parties, though – the licensing fee is their bread and butter.

Nobody is saying Sony is filing for bankruptcy tomorrow, but I did hear somebody say that they wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t around in their current form in two years time. Dunno how accurate that is though… I, for one, would be very shocked indeed.

In any case, competition (for blockbuster experiences) wouldn’t be between console types, but between a single type of console and the living-room PC, most likely popularised by the Steambox.

Regarding subscription fees, I’m afraid core gamer desires come at the bottom of the pile. Much like movie ticket prices, price hikes are justified by “superior content”.

@73 Console wars are gonnna be console wars, but according to Sonys statement, only 117 million went to restructuring charges.

The rest was explained by natural disasters, sales being down 20% in general, the PS3 price drop with declining software sales, as well as apparently pulling out of the S-LCD deal with a loss of 700+ million dollars.

It looks to me like Sony really needs to reinvent itself, and that’s an extremely tall order for a company of that magnitude. There will be blood.

@74: Do you have *any* idea how expensive it is to bring a console of Durango or Orbis’ calibre to market? Especially when it comes to manufacturing millions of units right out of the gate? Why do you think Panasonic have never tried getting back into the market after the 3DO? Why do you think the OUYA is just a glorified smart-phone (in terms of power)?

I think Valve have the nous to do it… but even they aren’t all 100% aligned internally behind Steambox. Like I said, they’re rich, but not THAT rich.

“Why do you think Panasonic have never tried getting back into the market after the 3DO? ”

Because 3DO was a failure obviously. If sony failed with PS1 it would never go back to the console space too.

@monkeygourmet, Hold your horses sir. I will defend Sony this time around.

XBOX dominance is still in question. The only reason why XBOX started off pretty well this generation is because Sony gived them a lot of opportunity: “Giant enemy Crabs at E3, 599$, No games with late in the console race, worst marketing campaign out of all three, shitty games, stupid promises in which 50% of them are still not delivered to date (FFXIII Versus, L.A.Noir exclusivity and so on).”

So far Xbox 360 has been on the market since 2006 and it’s 73 million while PS3 is 71 or 72 (it was released after one year!) and catching up and will probably outsell XBOX 360 once GoW:Ascension and The Last Of Us will come out. These are big games that will force people to buy console at some point.

XBOX brand is not that strong. In US it is a dominant force, but Sony is not that behind. PS2 is still the most sold console in US, in EU Sony has an advantage over Microsoft, not to mention Japan where Microsoft is a complete failure.

Sony this time around will sell it’s console for 399$ for sure, not to mention that they are going to back it with games. They have first party to do it. Everyone is already making games for the new system.
Media center or not, It’s a console and the console which will have better games/better exclusives/better Gaming content will win in the end.

Media Center is not the reason why people buy consoles. Today you can buy shitty Apple TV or current gen TV with Facebook pre-installed.

This CES 2013 showed that 90% of TV’s will be integrated with shitty media centers inside them. Look at LG TV’s. They have more content then XBOX 360/PS3 combined in terms of media center stuff.

Sony still have a good chance to win this gen. In fact, they have even more chances to do it because Kaz Hirai said that gaming is their Top priority right now with digital entertainment and Mobile. Playstation as a brand is stronger then XBOX and you can’t deny it (unless you are XBOX fanboy).

@78 – I heartily agree with everything you said there. MS’s foundation is not so strong that Sony couldn’t wipe the floor with them next gen. I am betting that MS Execs are sweating a bit when it comes to next gen. Windows 8 is not the be all end all and they could really screw up the next xbox if they do it wrong.

Sony’s position with PS2 was way stronger than the 360 and look what happened with the PS3, so anything can happen. Sony isnt going to repeat those same mistakes they made with the PS3, and that gave the 360 the legs it needed to stay ahead in the US. MS did alot right with the 360 early on, but then they seem to forget its about the games and focused more on services. Some on here think thats the future but I really just want a console for the games.

@78 & 79

I agree and disagree.

I wouldn’t have said people would be using Xbox for Netflix etc… 2 years ago.

I just think the games console is kind of dead now.

Sony obviously are trying to change too, streaming and TV services etc…

It’s a battle for your living room, not which game you are playing IMO.

MS will offer the most complete solution starting next gen. We shall see eh?!

MS will charge you subscription for services you already get on your tv/ps4… Sony are already looking in a far better position to get a few consumers back from xbox. even if they bring ps4 out after, so long as it is announced and is within 6 months, the smart people who decide they just want one console next gen will wait

@81 Hopefully VG247 or someone else will ask MS why these apps require gold membership when additional subscription is not required for the same apps on other platforms

I have a underwhelming attitude towards Xbox Next and Ps4, I am anticipating disappointment so therefore I won’t be annoyed come the time of reveals if they are indeed…shit. Be great to be pleasantly surprised.

Games console is not dead. Because people BUY them a lot for games.
Despite PC being the ultimate gaming platform, games like Battlefield or Call Of Duty sells x3 more on consoles then on ANY other platform because they are Gaming systems.

+ Netflix and other unnecessary bullshit that no one needs is just an extra. Just an EXTRA feature. Bonus at best or selling point.
Who the fuck wants to use twitter on their Xbox with a stupid controller? Okay, use stupid smartglass to connect your tablet to Xbox. Why you need that? That is confusing as F-Bomb.

That extra stuff is the same failure as 3D. Parents buy console for their kids so they could have fun playing shitty games or regular Halo fanboy buys it for Halo and not for Netflix or … any other stupid POS. People pay for XBL just to play with their online friends via XBL. Most of them don’t even use extra stuff.

Consoles are only for games. They will die and transform in to Exclusive Online apps where you can buy only games in the end from that publisher.

Multitask devices are everywhere. They are everywhere. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/01/ces-2013-samsung-t9000/

Now in your refrigerator.

2013 should definately be the comeback year for the games industry.

Sony will lose the war. They’ve already lost plenty of people like me that had a ps3 for several years, went to xbox after having issues, and never looked back (except for uncharted). There are so many ps exclusives that have gone multi-console that sony is going to have to work some serious magic to compete.

Me can’t spell but me right and me the ultimate hardcore gamer, me say anyone who disagrees is marketing victim.

Me PC is the ultimate art. Me opinion subjective.

Me no speaky speech.

@ Erthazus: When have you been right about anything? Seriously? I can’t recall any of your predictions coming true. You have “friends” that work in the industry but you don’t actually know shit, do you? Have you even graduated yet? No?

Fuck off and come back when you get a job in dev.

@88

I don’t think he even has a PC sometimes… O_o

This is ridiculous! technology is still very much alike anyway ffs ok if one of these guys have an extra option so what, I am gettin a PS4 Anyhow because I always get a Playstation I am a fan period, graphics wise there is going to be same difference as there is between 360 and PS3 today meaning none.. at the end of the day you get what you like most regardless of what others say right?