Speaking to Edge Michael Denny, Sony Worldwide Studios' vice-president, has spoken about the five years between the PlayStation 4's inception and the PlayStation 2013 event in February.
"What the announce in New York was all about was a chance to share our vision with everybody of what PlayStation 4 should be. And in essence I hope it came across that that visions is fairly simple, that we are absolutely looking at making a next-gen console for gamers and made by gamers," Denny said.
When Sony began preparing for PS4 Denny comments "We were in the heartland of PlayStation 3 so we couldn't really turn around and say 'hey, we're planning PlayStation 4 now'. We just wanted to get early feedback on the views of current-gen console development and some thoughts for the future. So that's where we were five years ago, it was more implied talks and just listening and learning from what people were going through (with PS3)."
The executive would not be drawn on the PS4's price following the PS3's notorious $599 launch fee.
"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 focues 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," he commented seeming to imply the PS4 will debut for a lower price than PS3.
Notably, the PS4's reveal event in New York failed to actually feature the console. Denny says "I'm not sure it's instructive for me to start trying to describe or talk about what I've seen or haven't seen in terms of the actual look of the box. But yeah, you know it's going to be another fantastic design and we can't wait to reveal it.
"We feel that the time is right" for next generation consoles Denny notes. "The gaming community is ready for a new, deeper, richer, more connected experience, so with that in mind you can understand we were chomping at the bit. We chose to do a staged announcement, as it were, in terms of a number of different occasions. So we started relatively early by talking about the vision, still leaving lots more to over the rest of the year up until launch."
The PlayStation 4 is due to be released 'Holday 2013'.