PS4 will launch after next Xbox, suggests Sony CEO

Sony will reveal and release the PS4 after Microsoft launches the next Xbox, the company’s CEO has suggested.

Speaking to The Times, Kaz Hirai said Sony would not be keen to make the first move in the next-generation console race with Microsoft through fear of having its ideas copied.

"Why go first, when your competitors can look at your specifications and come up with something better?,” he said.

Despite Hirai’s claims, it is rumoured that the PS4 could be announced as soon as next month, or at least during the Game Developers Conference in March around the same time Microsoft is expected to announce its next-gen console plans.

It is also unlikely that Sony would want Microsoft to gain the upper hand by launching the next Xbox on the market too far in advance of the PS4, while Sony is also unlikely to change its plans for its next console too radically even if Microsoft does announce its new hardware first.

Some previous reports have also suggested that Sony will launch the PS4 before Microsoft in October this year, with Microsoft following up shortly with the next Xbox in November.