Well well well, it seems that all the rumors and general consensus were indeed true - Sony has been working on the PlayStation 4 for the last five years according to Lead system architect Mark Cerny. That's probably round two years after they realized the PS3 wasn't going to cut it, then.
The announcement of the PlayStation 4 may have passed, but plenty of questions pertaining to the upcoming console remain unanswered. New details are emerging by the hour, and Joystiq has learned that while the PS4 will offer 4K output for video, the same cannot be said for games. This has its pros and cons, of course, notably that while you're not going to be forced to spend big bucks on a gleaming new 4K TV, it also means you're not going to be seeing games run at that incredibly high resolution, at least not yet.
New York City played host to yesterday's special event from Sony in which it finally launched the PlayStation 4, and as fans attempt to dissect and digest all the information revealed at the event, the Japanese company has released a trailer which offers an abridged take on proceedings. The trailer features a we words from key players in the console's development, sneak previews at some of the hardware and peripherals, as well as a glimpse of those all-important games. Check it out after the break!
Finally, after all the fanfare, Sony put all of the PS4 rumors to rest with the official announcement a short while ago, and if you're looking for the when, where, and what, we'll be clarifying all of the available key details in the following post. With so many new features and implementations, it is a lot to digest, but stay tuned for the full round-up after the break.
It has been a matter of fierce debate as to whether Sony does indeed plan to unveil the PlayStation 4 at its special event in New York City on Wednesday. The murmurings, the 'sightings', the leaked controllers - all seemed to point to the imminent announcement of the fourth-gen console, but there remained some skepticism. Now, though, unless Sony really wants to throw a curveball at the on looking tech world, it's safe to say the announcement will in fact relate to the mysterious next-gen release, with the Japanese electronics giant having just fed the nostalgic with three "Evolution of the PlayStation" video clips.
If there's one downside to picking up a shiny new game console, it's throwing out all of your old games because you've just not got the room to keep everything set up. That's where backwards compatibility comes in - letting gamers play the previous generation of games on the latest tech. The problem is that if the new machine's different enough to the old one, that may not be possible.
What with it still being very early in the year, lots of rumors continue to be frivolously thrown about as excited tech fans sink their teeth into the prospect of some landmark releases this year. The console wars are set for a step up, with both Sony and Microsoft releasing their respective next-gen offerings, and if it's the unofficially-dubbed PlayStation 4 you're waiting patiently for, it looks as though the controller for the upcoming entertainment system may have been leaked. Well, a picture of it, at least.
Blake Jorgensen, CFO of Electronic Arts, has given his take on the next-generation consoles of Microsoft and Sony, noting that he believes neither the Xbox 720 or PlayStation 4 will offer backwards-compatibility. Although this has long since been presumed to be the case among gaming circles, this is the first time a genuine insider has stepped out with all-but confirmation that neither of the hotly-anticipated next-gen consoles will offer any kind of support for pre-existing titles.
2013 is set to serve as the arena for the next-gen console battles, and although we're still at relative rumor stage and thus can only make assumptions, a report from Japan suggests the PlayStation 4 will arrive with a price point of around $430, which coincides with one of the previous reports published back in January. Japanese site the AsahiShimbun seems convinced the console will cost around 40,000 Yen, which equates to about $428 at the current exchange, and although the cost is more an indication than a guarantee, suggests Sony will be pricing its next-gen console much reasonably than it did its current one.
Remember when Sony's Vice President of Home Entertainment revealed that the PlayStation team were hopeful of making an announcement before the Electronics Entertainment Expo? It was originally predicted that we might expect to hear about the purported PlayStation 4 a month before the start of E3 in May, but an out-of-the-blue announcement from Sony could mean that we get the inside scoop three months early.

