Sony has said it has learnt lessons from the PS3 launch and has made sure the PS4 console will be more profitable than its predecessor.
The Sony PS4 has been specifically designed to keep console costs low in an attempt to steer clear of the huge losses suffered at the launch of the PS3.
“Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4,” said Sony CFO Masaru Kato, during the company’s earning call where it announced Sony ‘s first annual net profit in five years.
“At the time we developed PS3, we made a lot of in-house investments to develop the chip, the Cell chip. Development of the chip saw the silicon processing and all the facilities invested by us ourselves.”
Instead, Sony is working to make the PS4 a more profitable piece of hardware, and keep costs down for consumers too.
“But this time, yes we have a team working on chip development, but we already have existing technology to incorporate and also product investment and all the facilities will now be invested by our partners, other foundries, so we don’t have to make all the investment in-house.”
Kato’s comments suggest that the PS4 price will fall somewhere at or near the console’s cost price. Previously rumours back in February suggested that the PS4 price could be less than £300, citing internal documents claiming the PS4 will cost 40,000 yen (£259.84).
Michael Denny, Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios implied last month that the PS4 price would be more affordable than the PS3, as an attempt to “reach as broad a gaming audience as possible.”
Unveiled at a dedicated Sony event in February, the PS4 will play host to an eight-core x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU with 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, making the console more akin to a high-powered gaming PC.
Launching with the new DualShock 4 controller, the PS4 now faces strong competition from Microsoft’s new Xbox console that will be revealed on May 21, potentially packing very similar specs.
If you’re looking forward to seeing more of the PS4 at E3, have a gander at one of its potential launch games – Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Via: EuroGamer
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
