Looking For As Close To "Perfect Technologies" As Possible
For the last few weeks, the internet has been abuzz with chatter that an announcement from both Sony and Microsoft regarding the next-generation successor to their current home consoles is imminent at this year's E3 showcase event. It's all up in the air until the event itself, of course, but we've had a few niggling doubts ourselves, especially in regards to Sony, who've been very vocal in their admission that the PS3 is a ten year console. And in an interview with E&T, Maasaki Tsuruta, CTO of Sony's Computer Entertainment division, admitted their goals for future Playstation tech were still "five years away".
"You have to look at the current solutions and the current technologies and see how long you can extend those for the expected life of the product," Tsuruta explained, in regards to how Sony plans on executing future Playstation technology and ensuring its market dominance. "You always want ‘perfect’ technologies, but there are none. So, you look at what is available, and try to get as close as possible to that goal. Even then, some of the things that we want are still five years away [from development].”
Now, if Sony truly is planning on revealing the Playstation 4 at E3 2012, you'd assume that by conventional standards, they'd release it within a year or so of said announcement, namely late 2013 or early 2014. However, if Tsuruta believes their ideal technological solutions for the next Playstation console are five years away, whatever hypothetical console Sony might announce at E3 is still three years away from this technological standard.
Sony appears more interested in leveraging the PS3's share in the current console market, in particular its as-yet-untapped Cell processor, which only now developers are beginning to truly understand. "It took five years before we saw games that used the full power of Cell, so we are used to looking ahead and having capacity," he explained.
Tsuruta did drop some interesting tidbits regarding future Playstation tech, in particular the idea of digital distribution. "A typical PlayStation console game is 50GByte – transferring those kinds of size over most of today’s [public IP] networks won’t work," he conceded. He also confirmed Sony's stance on hardcore gaming, with Tsuruta revealing "wee think that the core games will continue to be the most important". Interesting stuff, be sure to give us your side on this in the comments section below. [E&T]