Sony CEO states next-gen hardware is ‘necessary’

The boss of Sony has confirmed the company is looking at bringing a PS4 successor to market, though further details are yet to be revealed.

In an interview with the Financial Times (paywalled), Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida made the non-specific, but difficult to decode, comment: “At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware.” According to the FT, Yoshida refused to clarify if he was talking about some kind of PlayStation 5.

The PlayStation division at Sony has gone from an experiment in branching out back in the mid-90s to something that dominates the company’s profits. 23 per cent of Sony’s $75 billion (£57.4bn) in revenue comes via the PlayStation wing, and – behind financial services – Sony’s game and network services division is the highest profit maker for the firm.

Microsoft’s moves into the next generation are already beginning to take shape publicly, with the US firm announcing work was underway on a follow up to the Xbox One during E3. More recently, the company’s Project xCloud was revealed, offering a possible glimpse at Xbox’s vision for the future of gaming.

Whatever both Sony and Microsoft come out with in the coming years, it looks like this fabled world where a new generation of consoles doesn’t arrive… isn’t arriving. A mix of cloud and ‘regular’ tech might be a more realistic vision of the future, but that’s all guesswork. What we do know is there will be – in some form or another – an Xbox Two and a PlayStation 5.