What I'm saying is Sony should not release a Playstation 4 when we think the 8th generation will start in 2011 or 2012; but instead release the Playstation 4 when the 9th generation starts in 2015-2017. I'm not saying skip a genration like cease support for PS3 and start again with the PS4, I'm saying just keep going with the PS3 (like at the level of support they are at now or more) and just don't release the PS4 until 2015-2017 (when the 9th generations starts).
Heres why:
Sony lost 3 billion dollars on Playstation 3 due to development, sales, and the price of the console. This is more than they made on the Playstation 2. There are no financial benifits to release a Playstation 4 when the 8th generation starts in 2011/2012. The Playstation 2 continued to sell more than the 360 until last year.
The Playstation 2 continues to sell very well, clocking in at a very respectable 144.1K in the August NPD results, keep in mind this is a console that was released in October of 2000 in the U.S. Sony barely even supports the Playstation 2 anymore so this is even more amazing. This shows that if Sony did skip a generation and continued to support the Playstation 3 it would sell even more than the Playstation 2 is selling now; now to what degree depends on how much they continue to support the Playstation 3 in the future (after the 8th generation starts).
The benifit of releaseing the Playstation 4 in the 9th generation is:
- Sony would have had time to develop it (from 2007-time of release) this is good because the cost of the technology in the Playstation 4 would have gone down over the course of development. This in turn would result in a cheaper launch price.
- Developers would have had ample time over the long PS4 development process to develop games to the fullest instead of rushing to launch with the console, development kits would be updated due to long development
- Playstation 3 would have a similar (if not better) game library to the Playstation 2 at this time. This is because games take longer to develop now, because of the long life cycle more and more games would be released on the Playstation 3. If a Playstation 4 launched in 2011 or 2012 let's be honest the Playstation 3 library would look lackluster (in terms of size) compared to the Playstation 2.
- The cost of the Playstation 3 is inevitibly going to go down as technology costs reduce, this results in more sales because of price drops that will not cause the company to lose money. Different models can be released (much like the Playstation 2 Slim SKU)
- A large Backwards Compatibility library for the Playstation 4 (assuming the PS4 has backwards compatibility)
- The Playstation 3 will be competitive with the Xbox 3 and the Wii 2 because of firmware updates, on top of that the Playstation 3 will have a far superior game library in comparison to the just out of the gate Xbox 3 and Wii 2, and at a lower price
Some may say it is a bad idea for Sony to release to Playstation 4 in the 9th generation instead of the 8th because the competition will have the upper hand in terms of technology. This is not true because there is something called the law of diminishing returns, for example as you get closer and closer to the speed of light time slows down. In this case as you get closer to reality in terms of graphics, processing etc... the jump from one generation to the next becomes less and less impressive. Lets say Microsoft for example releases the Xbox 3 in 2011 or 2012 and then releases the Xbox 4 in 2015-1017. The jump from Xbox 360 to Xbox 3 will be less impressive than the Xbox to the Xbox 360. The jump from the Xbox 3 to Xbox 4 will be less impressive than the jump from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox 3. The Playstation 4 (launching 2015-2017), while still bound to this law will be a larger jump from the Playstation 3 than the Xbox 3 to the Xbox 4(launching 2015-2017) simply because Sony skipped the previous generation opting not the update the technology until PS4. In the consumers mind they will see that the Xbox 4 is not much of an update from the Xbox 3 while the Playstation 4 had a much larger jump from the Playstation 3. The consumer will prefer to pay for something they see is a larger jump from what they already have, as opposed to something with a smaller jump.
Overall this is good news for both Playstation 3 owners, Playstation 4 buyers and Sony because the Playstation 3 owners will have had gotten their money's worth with a 9-11 year console lifespan. Playstation 4 owners will inherit a console cheaper than the competition and better games due the the very long PS4 development time. It is good for Sony because they will be able to make a comeback by having sales similar to PS2 with the PS3 simply because it was out (and supported) for so long, and will have a great launch into the 9th generation.
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