I recently read an article about the PS4 release date that had the headline “Hirai suggests PS4 is more than ten years away.”

After reading the article, I found that it made no suggestion as to when the PlayStation 4 release date would be, and again it was just speculation fanning false flames of curiosity and wonder and taking the comments out of context, so it was a “legitimate suggestion.” “. “.

The original PlayStation (PS1) became the first system to sell more than 100 million copies. However, it didn’t get to this point until AFTER the PS2 came out. In fact, it sold its 100 million copies in March 2005. This was actually 5 years AFTER the late PS2 release date. The original PlayStation is only now starting to lose its value, as games are now being made for the PS2 and PS3, but not so much for the original. With the PlayStation 1 launching in 1994, and still selling strong in 2005, I’d say gamers certainly enjoyed a good 10 years. This was what Hirai suggested, the PS3 will give you at least 10 years of value. But that certainly doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily have to wait 10 years for the next system.

Hirai even followed up when asked if the PS4 definitely wouldn’t be released within 5 years and clarified his last statement by specifying that all he meant was that Sony makes sure to take care of its customers so that its product will continue. good.

But, I digress, I’ll let you develop your own take on the interview.

The full interview is hard to find on C-Net News.

Here are some excerpts.

Hirai: E3 has a history of 10 or 11 years, if I’m not mistaken. I think it’s gotten to a point where it’s become such a massive show that we needed to take a look at what we were trying to accomplish with the show.

Hirai: …We see that our products have a 10-year life cycle, that we’ve come with PlayStation. So the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that’s going to be with you again for 10 years. We’re not going to ask consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation five years from now and basically have their investment fall by the wayside. So for all of those reasons, I think at $599 we’re offering a very good value to consumers.

CNET: Are you saying there won’t be a PlayStation 4 five years from now?

Hirai: Well, I think if you look at the history of how we’ve run our console business, we always try to hit a 10-year life cycle. I can’t speculate on when we might release a new console after the PlayStation 3. But my message is that once you become a family in the PlayStation family of products, you become a member of the family. We make sure to take care of you.

When asked about Wii vs PS3 pricing, Hirai later said the following: “Some consumers will compare features or software offerings and decide they can go with a different console. You also have to realize that we have a very strong, market-leading console called PlayStation 2, which is very affordable right now. Consumers will also understand that if you buy a PlayStation 2 right now and make some investments in software, when you feel it’s right to switch to PlayStation 3,” those software titles are not going to fall by the wayside. Consumers will take this into account. I don’t think price is the only determining factor when consumers make a decision by looking at their console buying decisions.”

When you consider all this, I think the clear message Hirai is saying is that even WITH a new system, the old system still has a lot of value because the new one will still be able to play your old games, and because the old one will still have new games released for it. . You don’t have a system like Sega where all of a sudden the genesis is replaced by the Sega Saturn until they both fail. You don’t have the PlayStation replaced like you do with the Nintendo 64 suddenly replaced by the game cube.

If you read the full interview, there’s nothing in this content taken in context that would lead you to conclude that “Hirai suggests PS4 is more than ten years away” (or even five). That’s not to say it won’t take around 10 years either. It’s just Hirai reassuring anyone interested in a PlayStation 3, that they won’t have to worry about the PS4 making their PS3 games irrelevant. This is interesting with the speculation that PS4 games won’t be discs. Maybe there is a way to digitally transfer data from PS3 to PS4. Maybe you buy games on the Internet like you can now.

Assuming both interviews are truthful and consistent, then if Ken Kutaragi said that the PS4 will arrive in the next decade; and Hirai’s statement indicated that having each Sony PlayStation last 10 years or more would only make sense if he was talking about the lifespan, rather than the number of years before the next product is released.

So there’s still a chance the PS4 will launch in the next few years, but anything that suggests it won’t be until 2016 or later simply doesn’t have any real evidence to back it up.