Masaru Kato, Sony’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, has confirmed that work on a “future platform” to succeed the PlayStation 3 is already under way, following an important call to investors where he was asked to explain the increased costs in research and development.
"For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," he said, "but this is a platform business, so for the future platform – when we’ll be introducing what product I cannot discuss that – but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there."
This revelation by Kato contradicts the statement made by Sony Computer Entertainment head honcho, Kaz Hirai, who in March said a “next-generation home console is not something that we are even debating now". Hirai also emphasised that Sony is no where near the half-way point in the PS3’s life cycle.
Stay tuned.