It looks like Sony Computer Entertainment may have sent rough and definitely not ready PlayStation 3 specs to third-party developers to solicit feedback. According to Impress (links to Google translation from Japanese), preliminary ideas being kicked around for the PS4 have it taking a page from Nintendo's Wii by focusing on lowering manufacturing costs and "merely" doubling in power, though by my yardstick, doubling the power of the PS3 would still be a pretty grandiose leap.
What else. Nothing you wouldn't have been able to intuit on your own, if we assume tomorrow's play book looks like today's "lessons learned."
For one, Sony wants to get out ahead of the Xbox 3 -- or 720, or whatever the heck Microsoft opts to call it -- by 2011, according to Impress. True or educated speculation, you can almost assume that Sony recognizes the now status-quo criticality of getting silicon to market first for simple, practical developmental reasons. The idea that "brand loyalty" trumps scheduling seems a lot less attractive after the laggard success of the PS3. If your favored publisher's "concept-to-gold-final" trajectory runs 12 to 16 months (the average, unless you're Will Wright with funding pockets deeper than the Marianas Trench) getting crowd-pleasing, deal-making games to market that show off your system's "va-voom" is all about timing, marketing and horsepower be damned.
The PS4 will also continue to utilize the existing CELL architecture, rather than launch something brand new. Bravo, says me, because forcing developers to effectively pick up and move from their established country to Timbuktu every half a decade is a surefire way to cripple launch cycles and leave "un-anointed" third-party developers out in the cold. What's more, a twice-powerful PS3 would almost certainly offer enough "oomph" to keep the plaudits coming from the hardcore faithful, while allowing Sony to more vigorously reach out to the Nintendo "casual" market with a steady stream of cheap-to-develop titles. The idea by 2011, presumably, would be to have a pinched and tweaked CELL SDK that absolutely purrs.
