Sony: PS4 Will Launch When Consumers Demand It - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 14 November 2012 / 16,085 Views
Sony U.K. Vice President Fergal Gara believes that there is plenty of life left in the PlayStation 3 with such releases as the Wonderbook. Gara said the company won't release their next generation console until the consumers demand it according EGM.
"We don’t take the view that it’s over for current-gen, that’s not the shape of our business," said Gara. "We’re continuing to innovate with the PS3, making it smaller, lighter and offering better value entry-point consoles. There’s been a big engineering push in Tokyo to give it a facelift and a spec revitalization, too, so that’s good to see… We take a longer view of lifecycles than some of the competition."
"There were pros and cons with the PS3 when it launched," admits Gara. "With it being such a high-powered machine it did mean it was quite expensive, but that also meant you could keep pushing it for a lot of time to come."
Sony has lately been focusing less on the hardcore gaming market and more on the casual market. The PlayStation Move was the first sign of this and Wonderbook and Book of Spells is continuing this trend.
"We’re into the world of trying to expand the console to new entrants who maybe considered a console in the past but perhaps thought the price was too high… we’re into that stage of the cycle, of trying to bring in the less committed side of the market and that’s where Wonderbook and Book of Spells will work for us."
"There is healthy competition out there, coming at us from different angles. It’s interesting this year since we all seem to be playing the game a little bit differently. Nintendo in the home console space is launching a new platform where I’m sure they’ll do well," said Gara. "But I don’t see an awful lot that’s new or exciting on the family agenda or in the Kinect space, so I think we have an awful lot of opportunity to bring something to the market, especially for that casual consumer."
"I sense a level of fatigue in the market over games with bigger and bigger budgets. And when some of those bubbles burst people will aspire for something with some more innovation…A lot of people seem to think that current gen is dead – it isn’t dead for us," Gara concluded.
More Articles
I don't think they've been focusing less on hardcore. They're releasing Last of Us, Beyond, Sly 4, Puppeteer, and GoW: Ascension early next year. They also give out a lot of free games on PS+ for all their hardcore customers.
The Last Guardian is still under development. So including that, pretty much explains why 2013 still should be too far way from PS4 launch.
Hah, basically he is saying "lets launch the PS4 after FFVXIII comes out" so basically not for a long time.
So...what form do we need to demand in? Petition? Written request? Smoke signals? I'm not sure how much clearer gamers and developers alike can make it that they want to move to the next gen now.
Very simple, when HW and SW sales trends will be heading under a minimum desired threshold, they'll deduce the time has come. No petitions, no polls, they'd just tell the desires of a minority, the only unambiguous language for this purpose is sales.
The truth is that the PS3 has legs enough to last another 2-3 years, easy. The other consoles do not. But see the problem is, that your average consumer thinks that since the WiiU is out, that the others consoles need to be too. Xbox360 is most certainly past due for a new console, so they will be bringing out their next gen in 2013. But Sony finds themselves in a difficult spot....Do they stick with their 10 year lifecylce, and not bring out a new console til 2014? They could probably do just fine with that plan....if there wasn't two new consoles from their competitors coming out withint the next 12 months. So it almost forces Sony to play their next gen console card now, with Micorsoft, or risk getting left behind, again. Lastly, PS3 is only 1.6 million consoles behing Xbox360, and has been out a year less, it's very clear that Sony is in fact the better selling of the two consoles.
The console can have it's 10 years cycle and the ps4 release nect year... Of course bigger projects will release on more powerful consoles.. but still with WiiU and PSvita on a similar stage I don't think PS3 will lack titles for at least 4-5 years...
It really depends on how you see it. I can see all 3 current systems continue to sell even after there respective successors are released. They will sell less in the large mainstream markets, but there are smaller markets they will continue to sell at.
As for the last comment. The Xbox sold what; 25 million or so, and the Xbox 360 is at 70 million and rising. It really depends on how you want to debate it.
The "hardcore" gamers on the ps3 don't buy a lot of ps3 games. I guess 32 million people playing Mario Kart Wii aren't hardcore since they play SUPER popular games.
So Sony is going to be the last out of the gate again? Wouldn't that be a bad decision on there part?
Again? Technically, they weren't last last time.
I love my PlayStation 3, but i miss so much the Cross Game Chat. This is why play online on XBOX 360 is so much better and easy for games multiplayer. Its a shame that on PS3 we have to send TEXT MESSAGE!! Really shame... This makes the PS3 exceeded when compared to X360 in 2012.
Please ellucidate me how does talking to a person that isn't part of your quest, mission, team enhance your game??? You know you can still talk to your friends in convencional ways if needed.
I can't help thinking that Sony are going to let Microsoft make the first move, and this time try to out-do whatever they come up with. While it would give up some market share, it might give them the opportunity to smoke whatever tech the others are using.
I think he's saying 'We'll launch the PS4 when the PS3 is milked completely dry of profit and we have no other choice'
Tbh, they can't afford to be thinking PS4 right now. They need to turn things around financially as a company AND within the gaming division more before that's likely.
And it's the smart business choice.
Less hardcore and more cassual? The truth is sony expand their market.
Yes, and thier base is demanding a PS4 end of 2013 / start of 2014.
Sony is in no position to release a new console and so here come the spin doctors. Simply put, they invested in a console and have not seen the return required on the investment to justify further investment.
IS THIS GUY SERIOUS, does he not see that global sales are down
I am tired of this generation
He seems to be plain blind.
I think they want to catch X360 in sales before, then they could say that they weren't the losers of the gen. And don't forget, 2013 has some big games to come for PS3
not a bad point, if the 360s successor launches and the ps3 is the only offering from Sony for another year then it would naturally assure it's second place status from this generation. Could be damaging for the ps4 when it does arise tho.
That's great.. I'm sure they wouldn't want to fall behind though.. and they will more then likely top 360 LT sales by sometime next year.. so they'll be 2nd.. I'm sure their main focus is profit.. which they will be making a lot of this holiday season with the PS3/PSv/PSN
You'll launch it when consumers demand/want it?
Well hurry the fuck up then, you're already late.
late? its the fucking opposite. releasing a PS4 right now is way too early.
late? its the fucking opposite. releasing a PS4 right now is way too early.
late? its the fucking opposite. releasing a PS4 right now is way too early.
I am a consumer and I'm demanding it now!
Sony will launch when the hardware and softwareline up is finished.
They can"t make games out of thin air and they can"t ignore the competitors and they won"t risk it to make the mistake Nintendo did with the wii(almost no software sales in the past month )
So 2014 after all 2013 PS3 exclusives are released. Ok, guess MS gets another year head start.
I was under the impression the mainstream VG market was asking for new consoles 1,5/2 years ago.
