• Posted January 14th, 2013 at 06:45 EDT by Mike Harradence
• 2 Comments

Hiroshi Sakatomi, vice-president of Sony Home Entertainment, has hinted that the PlayStation 3’s successor may be announced as early as May 2013.

Speaking to Emol.com at CES last week (via a translation by Google), Sakatomi-san said that details regarding the PlayStation 4 were “still a big secret, but our friends are preparing Sony PlayStation.”

“I can only say that we are focused on the E3 gaming event, scheduled for June. [The] announcement may be in that minute or even earlier in May.”

Quizzed whether the announcement would be a major or minor deal, he replied: “Probably the first. In that time we expect to deliver great news, but we must wait until May at least.”

Sony has remain tight-lipped in regards to its next-generation home console, though rumors have been circulating for some time now. According to reports, PS4 is codenamed Orbis and features a four-core AMD x86 3.2GHz processor and AMD 800 series GPU under its hood.

Internet gossip points to an early 2014 launch, although some outlets have pegged the console for a late 2013 release too alongside Microsoft’s new Xbox.

Regardless, it is widely believed that Sony will lift the wraps off PS4 at E3 in June. Whether or not we’ll see a slightly earlier reveal as Sakatomi hinted at remains to be seen.

Stay tuned to PSU.com for more details.