Shuhei Yoshida says not enough countries have enough internet access for such a move

Sony didn’t consider ‘always-on’ PS4

Sony never thought always-on was an option for the PlayStation 4.

Much speculation about the future of next-gen consoles revolved around the question of wheter or not they would require an always-on internet connection, and some still believe that might be the way the next Xbox is headed.

For Sony, such a decision was seen as unnecessarily limiting.

“Did we consider it? No, we didn’t consider it," said Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuei Yoshida in a chat with Game Informer Magazine, as recorded by Gamespot.

"The main reason being that many countries don’t have robust Internet connections. It makes sense for people to have internet connections to play online games, but for offline games there are many countries that we saw do not really have robust Internet.”

Though rumors abound claiming that Microsoft has taken a different view, a recent report cites what claims to be a leaked internal memo that says the console won’t require an always-on internet connection for some key features.

The final word in the debate will come on May 21st as Microsoft unveils the successor to the Xbox 360.

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