Ben-DutkaDue to the recent corporate shuffling over at Sony, a lot of crazy predictions have started to bombard the Internet. Not the least of which was an analyst prediction that hinted at the possibility of Sony bowing out of the hardware game.
But according to Paul Holman, Vice President of Technology for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, there certainly will be a PS4, but not at least until 2010.
"To say that there will be no PS4 because of a management change is a bit far fetched," he said.
In a recent interview with SmartHouse in Sydney, Holman stated that Sony game developers are coming to the realization that the PS3's Cell processor has "a heap more processing headroom than they initially anticipated and that this was resulting in the development of new gaming capabilities."
Holman further confirmed that there will be a new firmware update when the PAL PS3 launches in March in Europe and Australia, and there should also be "at least 20" titles available for the launch. Supposedly, the update will take advantage of the console's processing power for some new features, and Holman admitted the machine is likely to lean further towards a "multimedia" platform rather than a strict games console. This stays in line with everything Sony has said to this point.
He also said the PS3 would ship with a keyboard and mouse in the future to allow for easier access to the Internet. He didn't give any specifics as to when, or if the new inclusions will raise the price of the system, but after dealing with the online interface with the Sixaxis…we must say we support the idea.
Obviously, it's going to take developers quite a while to tap into the full power of that Cell processor, not to mention the greater capacity of the Blu-Ray format. This means the technical advantage the PS3 has over the competition might not become apparent immediately. We've seen as much with the launch titles, and it's also something we mentioned in our PS3 Report Card .
So at least for now, this should quell the rumors about Sony's game department falling apart because of a few management moves.