David Reeves, Capcom’s European Chief Operations Officer and the man behind the PlayStation’s launch all those years ago, believes the next next-generation consoles - the PS4 and Xbox whatever-they-call-it - could be with us as early as 2012. Speaking with GamesIndustry recently, he said without any qualms that first-parties have “got to be working on something”.

Update - Alright, it was clearly an April Fools joke. Click here for a right good chronicling!

Our inside sources at Sony have Confirmed (via email) the follow up to the PS3 is in the works which, in itself, isn't too surprising. However, the real shock is that the PS4 will be release in the first half of Sony's 2010-2011 fiscal year (if you're Japanese, anyway). Said the first of our sources (who wishes to remAin anonymous, for obvious reasons):

"They're definitely working on the PS4. There was a small meeting about it, saying that it would be using a newly developed chipset, codenamed 'Spiral Rift', alongside Cell 2, neither of which they explained in any more detail. It will release in fiscal year 2010-2011."

Our second source (we assume neither source Knew the other would be giving us a leak) went into more detail about the date;

"The PS4 will release in the first half of Sony's fiscal year starting 2010, using both brand new technology and advancements on the Cell engine. They did not mention backwards compatability."

So there you have it. Sony are working on thE PS4 and it's releasing much earlier than you could have ever expected. This begs to question what will happen to the PS3 - will it fade out with it's follow-up releasing so soon or will it continue going strongly like the PS2? Only time will tell. Read more »