When Will We See PlayStation 4?

During the Hot Chips Conference in Palo Alto, California, Rich Hilleman, the Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts philosophized and prophesied on gaming during a conference keynote.

Of particular interest to gamers was how and when they might see upgrades to their gaming consoles. Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox are growing older, and in the gaming world, are due for a facelift pretty soon.

However, that facelift may not come in the form of a brand new console, but rather in a stepped approach—improving the console slowly by degrees, rather than making an entirely new one. “I expected we’ll see a PlayStation 3.5 before we see a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox 560 before we see an Xbox 720,” he said.

Part of the challenge is dealing with the rise of mobile games. While developing games like Madden, Medal of Honor, and Guitar Hero take millions of dollars, months of labor, and hundreds of people, an iPhone game may take a few days of work by just one developer working from his parent’s basement.

So far, such “democratization of game development” is not a killer for mammoth companies like Electronic Arts. Rather, it gives promising talent an easy entrée into the industry where they can eventually join the ranks of serious game developers in bigger firms.

Making a game means lots of resources. When a game is designed, marketed, and eventually published, game corporations like Electronic Arts have to sell over a million copies to merely break even. A statistic like that stands in direct contrast to the free and easy turnaround of most mobile games.

And that is part of the saga of the delay in seeing new Playstations and Xboxes. The problem isn’t interest; the problem is the games themselves. Thankfully, gaming isn’t going away. Ever. But in order to enjoy the nascent form of next generation gaming, don’t wait for the Xbox 560. Go buy an iPhone.