Sony not planning major PS4 production loss

The PlayStation 4 won’t be produced at a major loss, says Sony chief financial officer Masaru Kato.

The next generation console might be a step forward technologically, but it doesn’t rely on such expensive proprietary designs as the PS3.

Sony told investors this means it expects to keep next year’s operating income near the same level as previous years.

"Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4," said Kato.

"At the time we developed PS3, we made a lot of in-house investments to develop the Cell chip. Development of the chip saw the silicon processing and all the facilities."

The Cell chip and blu-ray player of the PlayStation 3 made the console incredibly expensive to design and produce, and was a major cause of concern for many developers who found the Cell Architecture difficult to work with.

"This time, we have a team working on chip development, but we already have existing technology to incorporate," explained Kato.

"All the facilities will now be invested by our partners, other foundries, so we don’t have to make all the investment in-house."

Though Sony didn’t specify how many units of the new console it expects to sell in 2014, it did say it plans to ship around ten million PS3s.