While the PS3 is only now really hitting its stride both in terms of sales and game development, Sony would be foolish if they weren’t already planning the PS3’s successor. Especially if they plan on deterring Microsoft from beating them to the punch yet again with the first “next gen” console to the market.
Well, Sony’s mama didn’t raise no fool, as they are almost certainly hard at work on new hardware. This time around, they’re enlisting the help of Sony’s first party developers to help come up with ideas that will benefit Sony’s next piece of hardware.
When the PS3 first released, there were many delays in software, and what was released on the PS3, was likely a shoddy port. This is all due to the difficulty many developers had working with the PS3’s complex architecture. It seems as though Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Harai took note of this and has ordered that the hardware team work more closely with the talented developers throughout SCE Worldwide Studios.
In a recent interview with Shuhei Yoshida, President of SCE Worldwide Studios, he explains how Sony has learned from their past mistakes and aim to “connect hardware guys to developers” in the hopes of making more development friendly hardware in the future:
“When Ken Kutaragi moved on and Kaz Harai became the president of SCE, the first thing Kaz said was, ‘get World Wide Studios in on hardware development’,”
“So he wanted developers in meetings at the very beginning of concepting new hardware, and he demanded SCE people talk to us [developers].”
When pressed on the idea that this plan would be used to build future hardware, Yoshida had this to say:
“Yes, we are undergoing many activities that we haven’t yet been talking about in public. Some future platform related activities.”
Don’t get your hopes up for a PlayStation 4 just yet folks, the PS3 still has plenty of fight left in it. Also don’t forget that the PSP is in major need of a hardware upgrade and there is the possibility of something totally different coming from PlayStation in the hardware space. Only time will tell.
What do you think of Sony’s new plan to make their hardware more developer friendly?
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