PS4 Release in March 2013?

Once again, a new rumor has hit the web about the PS4. We’ve heard rumors of a PlayStation 4 release date in 2012, 2014, and so many more already that we just have to sigh and hope for one of these to be true. And don’t forget the rumor about PS4 development for next year release date.

Moreover, we’ve actually heard a similar rumor to this one already, but this one has a new source: a supposedly reliable anonymous person who heard the words “PlayStation 4 in 18 months” while Sony was in a “high level meeting”.

18 months from now is March 2013. While we’ve already talked about the PS4 2013 rumor back in June, when the Wii U unveiling caused a lot of speculation to circulate.

Of course, Sony responded with the usual: “we don’t comment on rumors on speculation”, but that just makes us more anxious. Could it be true?

Honestly, we believe that it’s possible to have an unveiling in June 2013 during E3, but why would Sony ever launch the new PS4 before the holiday season? Most consoles come out during November, when shopping rates skyrocket for the holidays. Same with major games, like the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which launches November 8, 2011.

Recently, we had a poll up asking you, our readers, when you think the PS4 will release. 4410 of you answered 2012, 3863 said 2013, 3713 answered 2014, 691 said 2015, and 865 of you answered 2016.

While we still think a 2013 or 2014 release date is most likely, we’ll keep our fingers crossed for it to be launched sooner. We want better speed, graphics, and all the quality Sony is known for to be out now in the PlayStation 4.

So what do you think? Does this March 2013 rumor hold any weight? If not, when do you think the PS4 will release?

CFO Backpedals About Confirmed PS4 Progress

We were all excited when we heard what Sony CFO Masaru Kato said last week, which we all logically assumed meant they were working on the PlayStation 4, but he’s saying he was misunderstood.

In case you hadn’t heard, Kato made a comment during a briefing:

“For the home console, the PS3 still has a product life, but this is a platform business,” Kato said. “So for the future platform—when we will introduce the product I cannot discuss—but development work is underway, so the costs are incurred there.”

When he later did an interview with Wall Street Journal, Kati says the only Sony product he specifically mentioned was the NGP (next generation portable). While this is true, he still hasn’t clarified that Sony isn’t working on the PS4, and we’ve already known they’ve been working on the NGP since it is due to launch later this year.

In fact, he alluded to the opposite of his Wall Street Journal general statement, and we can go far enough to say that, Yes, Sony is working on the PS4:

“Any time we launch a product,” said Kato, “from that day we already start thinking about the next one.”

Since the rumor about the PS4 confirmation wasn’t necessarily corrected (he claims he was just misunderstood), we can assume that the PS4 was not ready to be announced.

We know that Sony took a large profit hit this past year for multiple reasons, and that the PS3 is the worst-selling console compared to Wii and Xbox. A logical way for Sony to earn their profit margin back is to make the next PlayStation, since we already know they won’t be manufacturing parts from scratch for the second time.

Also, what about the August Game Informer Australia announcement that games are already being developed for the PS4? How can Sony expect to make profits on those games, without a console to play them on?

What if this is just Sony’s way of trying to appease the millions of angry customers in the aftermath of the Network Hack?

Possible PlayStation 4 Release Date

Now that the Sony PS4 development has been confirmed, we can finally start really speculating possible release dates for the next generation console.

We’ve been doing this for years without any confirmation from Sony saying they were actually under development, simply using the history of PlayStation release patterns.

Now that Masaru Kato, Sony’s Executive Vice-President and CFO, finally confirmed that the development of the PS4 is underway, but adding, “When we will introduce the product I cannot discuss,” what actually seems realistic?

As before, we still believe that Sony PS4 will have a 2013-2014 release date. Why? The PlayStation 2 was released 5 years after the original PlayStation, even though it had a 10 year shelf life. Then, another five years later, the PS3 was released, and this console also supposedly has a 10 year shelf life. It has currently been five years since the 2006 release of the PS3.

Many people speculate that 2016 is the furthest date possible for the next generation console, since it would fulfill the 10 year shelf life expectation, but that seems very far away. Gamers won’t mind having a new addiction sooner rather than later.

Other console manufacturers, like Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Wii 2, are already underway, with the Wii 2 being unveiled at E3 in June 2011.

It is doubtful that PS4 will be far behind the Xbox 720, so a 2013-2014 expected launch sounds entirely reasonable.

When do you think the PS4 will be released?

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