PS4: Sony CEO Comments On Next-Gen

Last night, Sony held its press conference for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where they showed 4K TVs, cameras and all that sort. 

While the event itself was live-streamed on the Official PlayStation Blog, there wasn't any gaming-related event shown in the presser hosted by Sony CEO Kaz Hirai. Admittedly, I wasn't expecting much, it's been ages since CES was considered a gaming event. But in years past — like 15 years ago — CES was the E3 back when E3 was still a small show.

For this year's event, Sony held a brief post-conference Q&A and inevitably, Kaz was asked about the PS4. Now don't expect much, but at least Hirai gave a comment on it instead of sidestepping as usual.

We’re very happy with the way that the PlayStation 3 has grown over the years. Obviously a lot of interaction with the PlayStation Vita as well…All of the gaming fans out there, you probably know that we don’t talk about future generation technologies until we’re ready to launch it in a big way.

Sony has yet to confirm anything tangible for its upcoming next-gen console, but even so, there are a lot of rumors for it already. Just in case you missed it, Sony has patented a new "GPU-Swtiching" technology, which we presume is for the PS4, Aside from that, Sony Japan also patented a way for Sony to "suppress" secondhand games, which we again presume might be used for the PS4.

Finally, our latest rumor pegs Sony as revealing the PS4 in February for select third-party publishers and retailers at this year's Destination PlayStation event.

Personally, I hope the tech suppressing secondhand games is just that — a patent. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if and when Sony does do something like this, then they just handed the next-gen trophy to Microsoft. I do think the chances of that happening are slim, but a February reveal for retailers and publishers do seem plausible…especially if Sony expects the PS4 to hit retail later this year or early in 2014.

Which of these rumors do you think are true? And do you think there's a chance we'll get the PS4 in our living rooms before 2013 is up?

Thanks, TheSilentChef