Sony confirms development of Playstation 4, hardware may be lighter

Sony seems to be showing signs of life again. The PlayStation Network will be switched back on in Asia this weekend and now we’re getting hints about a PlayStation 4 in the works. This comes as no surprise with the constant stream of Nintendo’s Wii 2 rumors and the probability of a new Xbox — Sony has to compete.

According to Eurogamer, Sony VP and chief financial officer Masaru Kato had to explain to investors about a spike in the research and development budget.

“For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life,” Masaru Kato said during the conference call, “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.”

We already knew that Sony, along with Microsoft, was planning on milking as much out of the present consoles. We heard that we wouldn’t see any thing new for a couple years, but that was because the companies’ were supposedly developing magnificently advanced technology for the new consoles. Masaru Kato’s may have confirmed development but according to Industry Gamers, the new system won’t be packing anything big.

It might be the $170 million in lost revenue, or the rising costs in development but Sony won’t be investing as much in the new console as they did with the PS3. It took a long while to bring Playstation 3 costs down from $599 thanks to the Blu-ray and the Cell processor; only recently is the company raking in its investment. The CFO says “It is no longer thinkable to have a huge initial financial investment like that of the PS3.”

We’re not sure if that means the PS4 won’t have the power to compete with the upcoming Xbox or even Project Cafe. Hopefully we’ll get a few more tidbits to go off of at E3.