When will the PS4 arrive?

I hate contributing to rumors on the internet but sheer curiosity has lead me to write this post. As I have said in previous posts I am not a gamer and I don’t pretend to be but it is still interesting all the same. The PlayStation 4 will clearly happen at some point in the next two-three years and we can imagine that it will be better than its predecessors. The first big rumor is that it will be a lot more eco-friendly than other consoles and older versions to give Sony a better environment rating. The device will be made of eco-friendly materials and draw a lot less power.

The obvious things like processor, RAM and hard disk will probably be improved and the console will definitely be made thinner because it was a dramatic improved (I am told) to the PS3 when it got thinner. I would throw out that the device may not have a disk drive which would seem a shame but it would make it cheaper and would also allow Sony to properly develop a marketplace for games so that they can be solid over the internet and downloaded onto the device which will probably be a move taken by many consoles/platforms over the next few years.

A lot of gamers (apparently) are jealous of the XBOX 360′s Kinect and they hope that Sony will develop something similar. It probably won’t because they have a thing about buttons. The controller might change a bit but it wouldn’t be in Sony’s interest to do so. It does seem on the internet that the main concern at the moment is just whether it has an eight core processor but Sony’s big worry is price. Amazon tells me I can get a brand new XBOX 360 for $179.99, a Wii with Mario Kart for $170 and a PS3 for $250+. The reason that the Wii and XBOX are priced lower is because they are trying to appeal to the entire family with more varied games whereas the PS3 is increasingly becoming the home of the FPS and racing games. The PS4 will have to drop the price without sacrificing features.