Sony ‘not deliberating’ PS4

In keeping with Sony’s ethos of a ten-year life cycle for its home hardware, Sony Computer Entertainment head Kaz Hirai has claimed that Sony isn’t even strategising its next home console.

"We’re not even at the halfway point [with PS3]," Hirai stated, as reported by Kotaku. "Every year, we reveal and release new features.

"That’s why, we’re not deliberating on a PS4 or a next generation machine, whatever you call it."

Opinion on the viability of the once unquestionable console hardware cycle has been the matter of some debate for a few years now.

THQ boss Brian Farrell said in 2008 that: "We used to always think of this industry as ‘the cycle’. I think the reality now is there are several sub-cycles."

And Nintendo president Saturo Iwata said a year earlier that he’s "quite doubtful that such a notion of platform cycles can be applied in the future".

However, last year Games Investor Consulting director Nick Gibson said that "we will see a major new generation of hardware launched in the next two-to-four years".