Sony, trying to reverse a two- year decline in PlayStation sales, is prepping a powerful new version of the home console to deliver more realistic games and entertainment features.
Sony “is 100 percent certain to announce the PlayStation 4” at a Feb. 20 event, says analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, citing his checks with game developers and retailers.
The company has invited journalists and analysts to a PlayStation meeting in New York, without providing details of the agenda. Dan Race, a Sony spokesman, didn’t respond to phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. A year ago, Tokyo-based Sony company introduced the PlayStation Vita portable game console in Japan.
“They’ll be able to put a lot more characters on the screen and allow for hyper-realistic games,” Pachter said.
Sony’s new console will feature graphics chips developed by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and processors capable of rendering games at 240 frames a second, Pachter said. Current-generation games typically render at 30 or 60 frames per second. As with past model changes, Sony would continue to produce and sell the almost 7-year-old PlayStation 3 for some time.
“We don’t comment on rumor or speculation as a matter of policy,” said Drew Prairie, a spokesman for Sunnyvale, California-based AMD. Nvidia Corp. provided the graphics chips for the current generation of Sony game consoles.
The New York presentation is expected to focus on Sony’s effort to deliver better integration with its entertainment properties and the ability to shift content off the device to the Internet, Pachter said.
Microsoft’ is expected to announce an Xbox 360 successor in June.
A new Sony console would follow Nintendo’s Wii U, which launched last fall, and precede Microsoft Corp.’s next Xbox game console, which will likely be unveiled in June at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said it’s a “super smart” move for Sony to pre-empt Microsoft. This way, the PlayStation 4 will get the spotlight without much competition.
The currently available PlayStation 3 went on sale in 2006, a year after the Xbox 360. But Xbox 360 has been more popular, largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online. The Wii is still the top seller among the three consoles, though it has lost momentum in recent years.
The Wii U was the first of the newest generation of video game consoles to launch, but sales so far have been disappointing. Nintendo Co.’s president, Satoru Iwata, acknowledged recently that the Wii U and the handheld Nintendo 3Ds didn’t do well over the holidays, but he ruled out a price cut for the new console.
All three console makers are trying to position their devices as entertainment hubs that go beyond games as they try to stay relevant in the age of smartphones and tablet computers. Such hubs can deliver TV shows, movies and music. The Wii U has a TV-watching feature called TVii. With it, the console’s touch-screen GamePad controller becomes a remote control for your TV and set-top box. TVii groups your favorite shows and sports events together, whether it’s on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.
Last week, Nintendo cut its full-year forecast for sales of the new Wii U home console to 4 million units from 5.5 million as it struggles to compete with tablet computers and smartphones made by Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Games for those devices typically sell for less than $5, while packaged videogames fetch as much as $60.
