Sony: PS4 Launching After Competition Would Be 'Undesirable'

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For the all of this current console generation, the PS3 has been trailing the Xbox 360 in terms of sales. It hasn’t been great for Sony, and while part of this issue might be due to the fact that the 60GB PS3 model was priced at $600 when it launched back in 2006, I’m thinking that a great deal of the blame lies with Sony launching the console a year after the Xbox 360 was released.

Sony, obviously, does not want the next PlayStation to rank in third behind Microsoft and Nintendo’s next console in the next generation, with Sony Europe boss Jim Ryan explaining to Eurogamer that to launch after the next Xbox isn’t part of the plan:

I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition [with the next PlayStation].

Of course, if new rumors are to be believed, the next Xbox will be launching sometime in late 2012 or 2013, and that doesn’t give Sony a lot of time to get a console out the door. Couple that with the fact that Microsoft almost definitely wants to get the jump on Sony in the next generation, and the need for Sony to get its next console on the shelves soon becomes even greater.

However, just because Sony recognizes that the next PlayStation needs to launch before the next Xbox, that doesn’t mean it’ll be calling it quits on the PS3 soon:

There’s still a lot of unfinished business on PS3. If you look at PlayStation 2, now in excess of 150m units installed globally, a huge majority of that was done at price points of £120 or lower. [With PS3] we’ve only just hit £199 in the UK, so clearly there’s a considerable untapped part of the market there.

What do you think? Will Sony manage to get its next generation console on shelves before Microsoft can release the next Xbox? Do you think which comes out first will matter as much as it did this generation? Head down to the comments section to share your thoughts and keep it tuned right here to TFTS – you can bet that we’ll have all the news about the next generation of consoles!