Sony Confirms "Future Platform" after PS3

Masaru Kato, the executive vice-president and chief financial officer of Sony, confirmed on Thursday that his company is working on a "future platform" after the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. In a conference call to investors today, he gave the following statement to explain the company's higher research-and-development budget:

For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life, but this is a platform business, so for the future platform — when we'll be introducing what product I cannot discuss that — but our development work is already under way, so the costs are incurred there.

Kaz Hirai, the corporate executive officer and executive vice president of Sony, said as recently as March that his company was concentrating on the PlayStation 3 instead of a hypothetical "near-future PS4":

I think the value of the PS3 will continue to rise. Because of this, a near-future PS4 or next-generation home console is not something that we are even debating now. That is to say, we are still concentrating fully upon the PS3. Right now, I appeal to you to think of the PS3 and NGP as a new, co-operative partnership.

Since Hirai's statement, Sony's rival Nintendo confirmed in April that it will sell the successor to its Wii game console next year, and it will also exhibit playable versions of the successor at E3 next month. Nintendo began selling its new 3DS portable game system worldwide in March, after a February launch in Japan.