It looks like an official announcement of Sony’s PS4 may just come sooner rather than later, with the successor to the PS3 possibly making an appearance either at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), if not before.

 

The news comes straight from the horse’s mouth, in this case, Sony's vice president of home entertainment, Hiroshi Sakamoto who revealed to Chilean website Emol that the company was readying to make a “big announcement” regarding the console at E3.

 

In response to a direct question whether gamers could look forward to seeing Sony’s latest console in the months ahead, Sakamoto then alluded that “it was still a big secret, but our friends are preparing Sony PlayStation.” While he confirmed that the company was focused on an E3 gaming event, which normally occurs in June, he also hinted that an announcement could be made a month earlier in May.

 

 

This is a tide shift as compared with last year, during which Sony was quick to deny rumours that the PS4 was slated for launch then, pointing out that its consoles were aimed at boasting a 10 year lifespan (the PS2 was only recently discontinued in Japan).

 

What’s more, Sony’s launch of the PlayStation Super Slim in September seemed to indicate that gamers could similarly expect the PS3 to similarly stay the course of a ten year lifespan, which would make the PS3 only eligible for a major upgrade in 2016.

 

According to CNET, the PlayStation 4 may very well boast a quad-core 2.9 GHz processor and a 1 GHz graphics card with 1GB of dedicated memory. The only dampener on the news is that even if the PlayStation 4 is announced in May, users may have to wait a few months for an official launch, quite likely later this year.

 

 

However, it’s not inconceivable that Sony may very well try pre-empting Microsoft’s launch of its Xbox 360 successor and aim to launch its new console sooner, rather than later.

 

Indeed, we have seen typical launch dates turned on their head – most notably by Apple – who have also changed when, and how frequently they launch new versions of their iPad tablet.