Kaz Hirai: PlayStation 4 Won’t Be Download-Only [Despite Famous Claims Made Some Years Back, The Next PlayStation Won't Follow PSPgo And Be Digital Media-Only]

Posted on TFTS by Kevin Schram on Thursday, 26. August 2010 under: Computer/Console Gaming

Back in 2006, then Sony Computer Entertainment executive Phil Harrison told Wired magazine that the he expected the PlayStation 4 not to have a physical disc drive. Years later, Sony gaming boss Kaz Hirai tells MCV that the world isn’t ready for a digital-only console and that the PS4 will probably have something or other.

Both Sony and Microsoft are sticking to their guns that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will stick around for a 10-year life cycle, which would put the new PlayStation 4 coming in around 2016. Hirai-san doesn’t believe that by then, the world will be ready for a download-only console. He says:

We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope. There’s always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium. To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.

Sony may be haunted by their PSPgo blunder. The hard drive-packing handheld console offered a new digital-only business model, but unfortunately, it lacked an UMD drive which handicapped former PSP owners from playing their old UMD games on the new device. Sony hasn’t released official sales figures for the PSPgo, but analyst estimates as well as the number of generous sales bundles leads one to believe they’ve been poor.

Would you buy a digital-only console? Do you think Sony is making a mistake by including a physical disc drive on the PlayStation 4? Sound off in our comments section.

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