John Carmack American game programer and co-founder of id Software states:

The whole jockeying for who’s gonna release next gen console first is very interesting and really divorced from the technical side of things. Whether Sony wants to try and jump the gun to, you know, to prevent the same kind of 360 lag from happening to them again seems likely. As developers, we would really like to see this generation stretch as long as possible, you know, we’d like to see it be quite a few more years before a next-gen console comes out, but I suspect someone will wind up shipping something earlier rather than later.

Playstation Logo

John Carmack is speaking in reference to what the race to put out the next console, primarily between Microsoft and Sony. Sony had suffered greatly during the previous launch, the launch of the Playstation 3, due to the Xbox 360 having launched just before.

The best thing for the game creators would be to remain on a single console for as long as possible, giving them a better chance to further their experience and ability in developing better games. More time on the Playstation 3 means the developers will have more time to launch games for it, and more time for the console to gain market share. But Sony can not afford to launch after Xbox, and Xbox knows they need the early launch to stand out… so someone is likely to jump the gun.

One benefit of the Playstation 4 launching early is that it could easily launch with and without the Blu-Ray, giving consumers the chance to purchase the new console for much less, and give the developers the ability to develope on a much less expensive platform. At this point it is unknown what console will be the next to launch, and the first of the next generation consoles, everything is a rumor or spectulation… But it is belived by many that Playstation 4 will lead the way.