Speaking to Edge Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida commented on the the development of the PS4 revealling that work began as soon as the PS3 was released.
"As soon as we launch a platform we have a small number of tech people move on to planning for the next. So I'm sure it was the same for PS3. You know PS3 is now [on sale since] 2006 so as soon as it launched I'm sure some parts of the company, especially those hardware people who work in R&D and the semi-conductor [division] must have started the R&D effort. And 2008, as Mark mentioned in the New York event, was the time when the initial project was formed, not by just the R&D people but including different parts of the larger, more cross-sectional team," Yoshida said.
Following the launch of the PS3 "Worldwide Studios provided the engine to thirdparty development communities in the early stages of the PS3. So that's how SCEI discovered the resource which is Worldwide Studios and we have a lot of technical people that may now source parts [which] we package and distribute to third parties.
"So we were talking following (Sony CEO, then SCEI president) Kaz's instructions that Worldwide Studios should be involved [in PS4], and I kind of suggested 'What about Mark?'" Yoshida said, revealling how Cermy became the first lead system architect of a PlayStation console.
Cerny is now "more dedicated to technical work for PS Vita and PS4 than on game projects, but he never stopped work on game projects, helping out teams like Santa Monica studios, and now he's a game director on Knack, with Japan Studio. He believes that he wants to continue to be hands-on making games at the same time as making hardware and platforms. So he understands the latest in game development and some pain points that the PlayStation developers may go through," Yoshida added.
While Cerny headed up design of the PS4 Yoshida makes clear all parts of Sony were involved in the system's development "You know we have a larger pool of engineering resources in the US, and also some in Europe, in additon to the large technical resources that we always have had in Tokyo. The final addition [to the PS4 hardware] were made in Tokyo as well by Andy [House, SCE's CEO] and [Masayasu] Ito, head of the PlayStation console. As the lead system architect, Mark reported to those two."
For more on the PS4 and the changes made to the Dualshock 4 controller read the Edge interview.
