Sony has admitted that it learnt lessons from the pricing of the PlayStation 3 and could be using the experience to launch the PlayStation 4 with a more competitive price tag.
Michael Denny, Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios, has implied in an interview with Edge that the PS4 could sport a more affordable price tag than the PS3 did at launch, in an attempt to “reach as broad a gaming audience as possible”.
The PS3 launched in 2006 with a £425 price tag, but suffered from a slow adoption due to the high console cost. Although Sony hasn’t official released the plans for the PS4 price, Denny did suggest the company had learnt lessons from the PS3.
“I guess the first thing to say is that we listen and learn and take the judgement from every console launch we ever have and we have to be informed by what the strengths of our PlayStation 3 system have been, but also the challenges of that,” said Denny.
“We want a system that can reach as broad a gaming audience as possible but whilst being a system that’s deep, connected, rich and immersive and is going to give a very focused and differentiated experience than anything else that’s out there.”
Unveiled at a dedicated event in February, Sony has yet to reveal the design of the PS4’s box, instead choosing to focus on the console’s innards and its potential to be an all-encompassing entertainment system.
The PS4 will play host to an eight-core x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU with 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, meaning the console will be more akin to a high-powered gaming PC.
“There’s plenty of time, we’ve got lots of information yet to give out on PlayStation 4. The initial announcement phase that we’re in now is just to explain the vision to everybody.”
“Part of that vision is we have created a console absolutely focused on gamers – and we want that to be gamers in the broadest sense as well. I think to some extent I can ask you to draw your own conclusions.”
The console will launch with the new DualShock 4 controller, which introduces a share button for social media integration, a touch panel akin to the rear touchpad of the PlayStation Vita and a LED light-bar showing off the DualShock 4’s PlayStation Move integration.
A PS4 release date is expected sometime in “holiday 2013” for at least one of the European, American and Japanese markets.
