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PlayStation (Games) Sony

Sony Probably Going To Do PlayStation 4 149

Posted by Zonk from the stop-the-presses dept.
Nomura Securities' Yuta Sakurai has been quoted as saying that 'he cannot imagine a PlayStation 4' because of Kaz Hirai's promotion. He sees it as a move (eventually) towards Sega-like software focus. Sony has, of course, immediately denied this because ... they (understandably) like money. From the article: "Following the launch of the PlayStation 3 just a few weeks ago, and witnessing the huge consumer demand for the product, I think it would be rather short-sighted for anyone to predict there might not be a next generation of PlayStation product."
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Sony Probably Going To Do PlayStation 4 More

Sony Probably Going To Do PlayStation 4

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  • Oh really? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:25AM (#17066816)
    No shit sherlock. The PS3 would pretty much have to not sell any units before ruling out the PS4 would seem plausible.

    • Re:Oh really? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:52AM (#17067378)
      No shit sherlock. The PS3 would pretty much have to not sell any units before ruling out the PS4 would seem plausible.

      Well, yes and no ...

      Sony's strategy for making money off of a videogame system is drastically different from Nintendo's strategy. Sony makes money because a lot of third parties sell a ton of games on their systems and Sony gets their licencing fee (cut) out of it; Nintendo on the other hand tends to be the number one developer on their own systems by a large margin so they profit through the sales of their own games. For Sony to be really profitable they need to have a very large chunk of the market share so that third party developers have no choice but to develop every game for the Playstation; if they lost enough marketshare that developers were focusing on another platform they would probably be better off leaving the hardware market.

      Personally, I don't know the numbers that would require Sony to leave the console market but I suspect if they sold in the Gamecube/XBox range with the PS3 the PS4 might not happen.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by MrAnnoyanceToYou ( 654053 )
        Might not happen or might not be profitable? There's a difference. If you're a major multinational corporation, sometimes- out of habit- you spend a few billion dollars. Amusing and sad at the same time.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by shoptroll ( 544006 )
        Here's my conspiracy theory.

        Sony is very very far behind on its road to being the system with the most boxes in the living room. In less than 2 weeks, Nintendo has already moved about 1.5-3 times (depending on if what figures you look at) as many Wiis as Sony has PS3's. This also doesn't take into consideration the fact that the XBox360 has been firmly engrained in the market for almost a full year. For sony to have had a successful launch they would've needed to at least tied with Nintendo for the amoun

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 )
        It is highly probable that over the lifespan of the PS2, they turned a profit purely on the base hardware alone. In other words the later revisions sold at enough profit to make up for any earlier losses. After that, licensing revenues and accessory sales are pure icing. These are the same economics that Microsoft has to deal with. They would have to do worse than you think to turn away from hardware development. They would have to not only lose exclusives, but lose developers entirely.

        Many game companies h
        • Sony started to turn a profit on each PS2 quite a while ago, but the total profits from hardware alone would be tiny in comparison to licencing fees from software. Last time I checked there were close to 750,000,000 copies of PS2 games sold world wide, with Sony making about $6 to $8 on licencing each game (for a grand total of about $5 Billion); to get similar profits from hardware Sony would have had to make a $50 profit from every PS2 shipped.

          What I was talking about when I was refering to Nintendo's bus

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jpardey ( 569633 )
        It seems to me that they are not trying to make money on the game system, and instead are focusing on populating living rooms with blue-ray players. If they can get studios to sign to their format, Sony could do very well when high definition is ubiquitous, and people want discs to watch on it. The PS3 is an investment, either way.
    • IN a stunning development, Osbourne computers announces the future development of the Osbourne2. Sales of of the just released Osboune1 plummet. Osbourne goes out of bussiness and the #2 is never released.

  • BREAKING NEWS (Score:5, Funny)

    by C0rinthian ( 770164 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:26AM (#17066828)
    Console Manufacturer plans to develop, release console.

    In other news, Microsoft hopes to sell software in the future.
    • I think there is some merit in discussions of dropping the hardware biz. For one, the stakes are a lot higher than just making games. They lose money on the hardware in the hopes they will make up for it in licencing fees, which might take several years, assuming they do make that money back. There's quite a lot of price pressure, so production cost reductions might not mean losing less per unit, they may have to reduce the cost of the console first. It's a business model that I don't envy.
    • In other news, Microsoft hopes to sell software in the future.

      But get paid for it both today and in the future.

  • Why wouldn't they? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:27AM (#17066854)

    The PS3 in the long run will probably turn out to be OK. You learn from your errors and move on. Why does every decision have to be Draconian these days?

    Besides, the promised us the nano-dust based PS9 in that commercial.

    • It's not just the PS3. Sony is hurting in several other departments as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rayonic ( 462789 )
      The PS3 in the long run will probably turn out to be OK.

      Oh yeah, in 2 or 3 years the PS3's price will drop to a reasonable amount, allowing mass adoption.

      I'm sure most developers will stick around until then, completely loyal to Sony.

      • It's not about loyalty, it's about profitability. When the PS2 came out, everyone nay-sayed as well. Look what happened there. I think Sony has made a LOT of terrible decisions in the past few years, but ultimately the brand is still very strong and people still want to buy PS3s. You're assuming its price is a significant hurdle for most people: honestly, we have no way of knowing, because supply is so scarce. If in three months' time, the PS3 is well-stocked and no one is buying them, then you might have a

        • Re:Why wouldn't they? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Rycross ( 836649 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @02:27PM (#17070472)
          I think the key with PS2 was that they ramped into it. Backwards compatibility was key to this, since Playstation was still being supported a good while after the PS2 came out thanks to it. So if you're an early adopter, you get your DVD player and next-gen games. Otherwise, your old Playstation still has games (albeit less than before) comming out for it, and when you finally can afford a PS2, all those games you bought work on it.

          Thats why I don't think price is as much of an issue as people think. Yeah, its expensive (and I don't think I want to pay $500 for it right now, we'll see in a couple months when its actually available), but my PS2 probably has at least half a year in it before its hard to find new games for it, and even then I can get discount games. It can last me until the PS3 price drops.

          And brand is a really strong factor. The Nintendo empire wasn't destroyed in a day. The real key to Playstation dominence was that they expanded the market, like Nintendo is trying to do right now.

        • (Sports/Racing games are the biggest sellers on most consoles but those are almost always cross-console.)

          Why don't more multiplayer sports and racing games show up on home theater PCs in addition to consoles?

  • Shareholder Report Card (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohnNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:28AM (#17066874) Journal
    So after keeping up with Sony news on Slashdot, I've learned that on launch they shipped around 150k PS3s and they sold out. I also learned that they lose something like $200-300 per console.

    So I guess I figure that they lost around $37 million dollars on that day. So I would imagine that this will look pretty bad on their shareholder report card when their fourth quarter profits for 2006 come out.

    Now, they'll make more than that in the future licensing the games. But I doubt they'll make that back before Christmas. So I would suggest holding off on PS4 speculation until the holiday season is over, all the facts are in and the shareholders tell the games division of Sony what to do. In the end, it's not Kaz Hirai or Yuta Sakurai that determine whether or not a PS4 happens, it's the reaction by Wallstreet and the people holding the shares.
    • they're in a fight for domination. The shareholder will like market domination in the long term rather than immediate profit, since that equals long term profits. Or so I think.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jonnythan ( 79727 )
      The R&D and production costs of the consoles is spread out over a fairly large time frame.

      It isn't like they calculate up the costs of building a PS3 and don't count it until they sell it.

      "OK, we sold 200k PS3's this quarter, so write down $12 million in the 4th quarter revenue box and $16 million in the expenses box"
      • Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance here. I'm a computer scientist, not an accountant. But I have had the balance sheet crap shoved down my throat by corporate.

        The R&D and production costs of the consoles is spread out over a fairly large time frame.

        I'm not talking R&D, I'm talking the cost of each component, as reported on Slashdot [slashdot.org], seems to be $300 over the price tag.

        It isn't like they calculate up the costs of building a PS3 and don't count it until they sell it. "OK, we sold 200k PS3's t

        • That's just the thing. You can't put an exact price on materials for a high technology item like Cell for instance.

          Well, you can, but that's only a tiny fraction of it's real cost, so it's an essentially meaningless number.

          Let's make some assumptions here, for the purpose of analogy.

          Assume it cost $1 Billion to develop the technology in Cell.

          Assume that it cost annother $1 Billion to build and / or retool the foundries that make Cell processors.

          Assume that the cost in raw materials is $20 for each cell chi

      • It isn't like they calculate up the costs of building a PS3 and don't count it until they sell it.

        They sure do wait to state the per-unit expenses until the period in which they state their sales. It's a basic principle of accounting known as the Matching Principle. Until they do record the sales (or write off the unsold inventory) the expenses are stated as deferred expenses, which is an asset account. They will remain in the asset account until they are used up, expired, or matched with revenues.

        "OK,

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jandrese ( 485 )
      On the other hand, at only 150k PS3s they have room to sell millions more boxes, preferably after a couple of hardware revisions where the cost of the components (particularly the BD-ROM drive) come way down.
    • It might look bad for the 4th quarter and although I would hope that investors are not so short sighted (yeah yeah, I know, institutionals), Sony doesn't need to decide if they will do a PS4 for at least a year or two. By that time Wallstreet and everybody else will better be able to judge the success or failure of the PS3 and Sony can work out what it wants to do with regard to future consoles.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      The problem with relying on Slashdot for your PS3 news is that Zonk ensures to pick the most negative things to say about the PS3. Why anyone would be that juvenile is not known but it's true.

      As to how many consoles they actually sold, you'd have to wait for their stock holders report or when Sony itself chooses to break the silence. They continue to say they'll ship 1 million consoles by end of calendar year so perhaps things aren't as bad as people make out. Personally that sounds rather optimistic, but

      • No offense, but have you looked at other media sources lately? I've read reports on CNN complaining about Sony's bungling of the PS3 launch. I read in local newspapers about dozens of people being turned away from local the Target store in tears because they only got a supply of THREE units. Webcomics like Penny-Arcade are basically copy-and-pasting news reports of PS3 launch woes into their comics and recieving POSITIVE responses from their audience.

        As for Sony's sales, seeing as anyone buying a PS3 is vir

      • HAHAHA (Score:2)

        by LKM ( 227954 )
        The problem with relying on Slashdot for your PS3 news is that Zonk ensures to pick the most negative things to say about the PS3

        HAHAHAHAA

        I think that particular problem is with you. If you read any other news source, you'd know that they sound just like games.slashdot.org - even worse, usually.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      The $37m is really chump change compared to the over $1bn spent developing the PS3. Those charges showed up on the earnings reports over the last year or two, so by now most of the losses have been accounted for.

      Their investors understand this, because its a very common business model for technology companies. Sony spent over $1bn developing the PS2 as well, and lost money on the first units, but made back multiples of that over the lifetime of the console. Also, any losses they take on the launch are goin

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by brkello ( 642429 )
      This is only if you live in some sort of retarded universe where Sony is only making the PS3.

      In reality, the PS2 is selling like crazy and so are PS2 games. Shareholders aren't going to see "Sony loses money selling consoles". They will see that Sony's game division is making money hands over fist and that they are positioning themselves to continue to do that for the next generation. Right now Sony is making an investment on the future. Any investment is a gamble and this is a big one for Sony. But t
    • Seriously. Sony is such a large company with fingers in so many pies that to expect a significant stock switch based on a quarter in which they launched the PS3 is naive.

      xXx State of the Union LOST Sony 60 Million. Did that affect their stock? Nope. Their entire movie studio division posted a net loss of some 65 Million for 2005. Did that affect their stock price? Nope. What did shareholders have to say about that? Not a damned thing.

      From Sony's site:

      In the year ended March 31, 2006, consolidated sales and

    • As IAAA (I am an accountant), Sony has a couple of ways to not take that big a loss in this quarter:

      1. They can "depreciate" it -- basically they chop up one big loss into tiny pieces and take the hit over a long period of time. This is why if Intel opens a new plant, it wouldn't have one hugely unprofitable quarter (from the multibillion dollar investment), and quarters after that with oodles of profit.
      2. They can use "accruals" to offset the loss. Basically they say "we've spent $x, but will make back
  • ...a fog machine.

    I'll buy that!

    Ciao

  • Market Momentum for the brand (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Captain Kirk ( 148843 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:34AM (#17067012) Homepage Journal
    Sony has not let its buyers down with a console yet.

    Everyone who buys a Sony console knows there will be many games for it. With that kind of franchaise amd market mementum, there is no way sony will skip releasing a Paystation 4.

    The only question is when will technology that is exciting enough to display the new games be ready?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rycross ( 836649 )
      Its not really a matter of new technology being available. Usually, a console company tries to squeeze 5-6 years out of a console, so that their customers' investment lasts for a while.

      The last company that rapid-fire released new consoles and upgrades to try to keep up with the technology curve was Sega, and it basically destroyed their reputation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by apoc06 ( 853263 )
        lets not forget that the xbox has done the same. it barely had only 4 years under its belt before it was ditched in its entirety in favor of the xbox360. also, of note... there are a few key people that are former sega people now under the MS banner. lets not forget the intense modularization of the xbox360 seems very much like the genesis era[segaCD, 32x, nomad, saturn, etc...]. theres a baseline and a premium version of everything [tiered online services, actual units, wireless, hardrives, hddvd, controll

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      This is the 21st century no company is too big to go out of business.

      Gee... IBM doesn't build PCs anymore.
      So the idea that Sony might stop sell game consoles is equally as possible.
    • Lets extend that logic a bit shall we.

      1.. Prime
      2.. Prime
      3.. Prime


      Therefore, by inspection, 4 must be prime!
    • Sony has not let its buyers down with a console yet.

      Everyone who buys a Sony console knows there will be many games for it. With that kind of franchaise amd market mementum, there is no way sony will skip releasing a Paystation 4.

      The only question is when will technology that is exciting enough to display the new games be ready?

      This may be true, but the same could have been said about Nintendo when they were wrapping up the SNES. You could say there's a first time for everything ...

      I know that Sony likes to

      • What about the PS3 makes it worth more than the XBox 360?

        PlayStation 3: Sony provides Other OS Installer [playstation.com], its official way to install other operating systems. For instance, I've seen a video of starting Fedora on a PS3 on YouTube. If you have Fedora, you have all the games that come with Fedora, and if they support joysticks, they will work with SIXAXIS. Total price: $500 for PS3 console.

        Xbox 360: Microsoft plans to provide XNA Creators Club [microsoft.com], its way to run .NET on your Xbox 360 console. Microsoft plan

        • I wasn't really intending for those questions to be answered ... they were mostly examples of what Sony should be answering ...

          Anyways, I could be completely uninformed but I thought the purpose of the XNA creators club was a very inexpensive way for hobbiest/indie developers to get access to the XBox 360 to develop products that could eventually be released on XBox Live. Sonys Other OS Installer isn't really about this from what I gather ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LKM ( 227954 )
      Sony has not let its buyers down with a console yet.

      I own a PSP, you insensitive clod. I call it my portable Lost player.

  • Wow, that's like saying "Crest is going to make another tooth brush!"

  • It won't be called PS4 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @11:44AM (#17067212)
    4 is an unlucky number in some Asian countries.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Mr. Hankey ( 95668 )
      In Japanese at least, the on yomi (shi) of the number four is a homonym for death. Probably not the sort of feeling they would want to convey for a new console's launch.

      • Re:It won't be called PS4 (Score:5, Funny)

        by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @12:07PM (#17067724) Journal
        In Japanese at least, the on yomi (shi) of the number four is a homonym for death. Probably not the sort of feeling they would want to convey for a new console's launch.

        I don't know about you, but I'd buy a console called the DeathStation.

        • Re:It won't be called PS4 (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Mr. Hankey ( 95668 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @12:17PM (#17067958) Homepage
          Perhaps, but the connotation is a bit different in Japanese. It would be more Sony like calling it the MiseryStation here. I'm sure they'll have something, and it'll probably be a PlayStation brand, but they'll likely come up with another way to name it. Maybe PSNext or something to that effect.

          • Shush, calling it the MiseryStation will just make it a hit with emo kids.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Daetrin ( 576516 )
            I'm sure they'll have something, and it'll probably be a PlayStation brand, but they'll likely come up with another way to name it. Maybe PSNext or something to that effect.

            Well you're half right. They _are_ a little superstitious about the number 4 in japan because of the similarity in sound. I've heard that this is why you'll frequently see teams of three or five in anime but rarely of four. And frequently if the number four is invoked at all it's because of some outside cultural reference such as the t [wikipedia.org]

      • since they dont translate the number or the name to japanese and just call it the PS3, i doubt that it would be a problem. But you never know. I know hospitals dont have a room 4 since no one wants to go into a room marked "death".
      • In Japanese at least, the on yomi (shi) of the number four is a homonym for death. Probably not the sort of feeling they would want to convey for a new console's launch.

        Then they will probably call it a Pentium.

      • In Japanese at least, the on yomi (shi) of the number four is a homonym for death. Probably not the sort of feeling they would want to convey for a new console's launch.

        In Japanese, the number in the name of a Sony game console is read as the ei-yomi ("surii"), not the on-yomi ("san"). The name of the PLAYSTATION 3 console is pronounced "Pureisuteeshon Surii".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      If it's not so unlucky that they refuse to have a 4th floor in a building (as the US doesn't have a 13th floor) then I don't think it's very likely to prevent Sony from calling it the PS4.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rycross ( 836649 )
        Some buildings in Japan don't have a 4th floor. The apartment building I stayed in didn't. A couple of parking lots also skipped the number 4 too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Apparently it as bad as the number 13 for some western countries. Buildings miss floors 4, (13), and 14 etc.. Personally I laugh at the superstitious bullshit that emanates from supposedly enlightened countries. But some people believe it as they do fung shui and other nonsense. Sad but true.
    • Absolutely. I used to work at a place that issued license plates for cars. Many Asian customers would literally refuse to do business with us unless we gave them a plate with no 4s in it. As mentioned, the word for "4" is a homonym for "death" in several countries.

      The irony, of course, was that when the province went to specific date expiry, 1/30th of these people had a big "4" sticker on the corner of their plate, as their birthday happened to mean that their plates expired on the 4th of the month. I guess
  • "selling out of consoles by underproducing" != "huge consumer demand"

    For all we know there are only X-hundred-thousand harcore PS fans (in the US) who really want a PS3 and once that many have finally been released here by Sony demand will drop to nearly zero. Current estimates from EA say Sony only shipped around 200,000 at release. Now of course this may not be the case, but claiming that your product has a huge consumer demand because you didn't even make enough to satisfy initial demand is at best mi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      There are currently something like 110 million PS2 consoles in the world. It is reasonable to believe of those that there is an enormous number that are very or somewhat likely to move to the PS3. So there is demand, at least for a while. It's just a matter of how quickly Sony can push those consoles out to people who want them before consumers and games makers give up.
      • I'm not sure that there's that much demand at the current price point.

        And the majority of those PS2s were sold to middle-class and even some lower-class families. These families can't spend $500 on a console. A good chunk of them can't even spend $300 on a console. You can talk about the hard core gaming market all you want, but the numbers say that it's a tiny market segment. Most of their sales have to come from the largest market segment, middle class families.

        From what I can see, the PS3 can't match the
      • Actally more along the lines of 50 mio still a huge number, but the 110 mio ps2s are highly exaggerated given sonys track record of failing hardware, many users already are at their second or third console thanks to failing drives.

  • I can't wait for the PlayStation 10! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GreggBz ( 777373 ) on Friday December 01, 2006 @12:07PM (#17067718) Homepage
    Well, it takes normally 3 crappy consoles to kill a gaming juggernaut. The last one is usually a desperate effort harnessing some completely obtuse miracles of complex technology.

    See: Atari 7600, Lynx, Jaguar
    See: CD32, Saturn, Dreamcast
    See: Amiga 500, 3000, 4000T

    With Sony, since they are so diversified, it would probably take at least 7 crappy consoles before the games division tanks.
    So, I guess what I'm saying is that the PlayStation X should be friggin spectacular.
    • If your going to include Sega's Sega CD and 32x, atleast mention that they were lock-ons to the Sega genesis...

      Well, except for later on when some limited all-in-one versions were made. If you make your statement irregardless of the all-in-one, then you are correct that it takes three. However, I don't think it's just crappy consoles that kill a juggernaut. The Dreamcast was a very decent console and (for 2D) Saturn wasn't to bad either. What killed them was better competition, the PS and PS2 and 3rd party

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LKM ( 227954 )
        I think that the last attempt is usually pretty good, but too late. The Dreamcast was a great console. The Jaguar was widely hailed both in magazines and by developers when it came out, and while it wasn't a true 64 bit console, it did beat the shit out of more expensive consoles like the 3DO.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by miro f ( 944325 )

      See: Atari 7600, Lynx, Jaguar
      See: CD32, Saturn, Dreamcast
      See: Amiga 500, 3000, 4000T

      N64, GameCube, Wii?

      Neither the N64 and Gamecube were a resounding success, and many people predicted after the Wii (or beven before it) Nintendo would do a Sega pull out of the console hardware business.

      Now suddenly people are talking about Nintendo regaining the Number 1 spot.

      Of course, we won't know what happens for years yet, but I wouldn't discount Sony quite yet.

    • Well, the Amiga 500 was all but crappy. And quite successful too.
      By the way, none of the Amigas was a "console", even though the 500 was mostly used for playing games. :)
  • Well, I guess it's better than Microsoft creating the Playstation 4.

    (What the heck is the article title supposed to mean? I we supposed to believe that Sony would never create another system and call it a Playstation?)
  • First off let me just say that I am a Nintendo fanboy and I may have a slight bias against Sony. That being said, I think that the video game industry needs more competition as far as in-home and handheld consoles go. More competition generally leads to a better overall product and that is what drives growth. If Sony does not continue the Playstation line I sure hope they come up with a "new" line of consoles for the good of the industry if nothing else.
    • Don't take this wrong, but that path of thinking doesn't really pan out in reality. Just, for a moment, assume that the PS3 does tank and Sony bows out of the console race. Suddenly, the guy who was on top for 2 generations disappears. Do you really think anyone with the technology and the money to put their hand in isn't going to consider it?

      The only reason no one is trying anything right now is because they'd have to go against Nintendo, the company that dragged this industry out of the gutter 20 yea

  • I can't find it though, it's where Gabe buys a box of forks off of eBay and thinks it's a Playstation 5 or something. PA's search function sucks, Google can't find it either, anyone happen to have a URL?

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