PS4 Starts Production at End of 2011 & Scheduled for Release in 2012

According to Taiwan factory producers, production of the PS4 from Sony will begin at the end of 2011. The product is scheduled for release in 2012, with 20 million units being shipped worldwide. This information comes directly from the Taiwan makers speaking to digitimes.com.

Previously, I gathered information from reliable sources at third-party videogame developers, confirming that at least one next-generation console would be on the market by the spring of 2013. You can read about this here, but there is no doubt the developers appeared to be telling the truth since they were opening a new studio specifically to work on a game for that new hardware platform. In the world of business, this is referred to as "Putting your money where your mouth is."

I originally thought the factory producers in Taiwan probably were just confusing the PS Vida with the PS4. However, the makers of this product specifically described how the PS4 will use motion-control technology similar to Kinect. This seems like a logical step for Sony, since the Kinect motion-control device used with the Xbox 360 is now in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest-selling electronics item in history.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this issue. There is no doubt the PS3 has experienced disappointing sales this generation and is the least successful Playstation console ever released. But is it a good idea for Sony to pull the plug on the PS3, even though it now has over 50 million units sold worldwide?

Although it's true that 50 million units sold places the PS3 behind the Wii from Nintendo and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, it doesn't necessarily represent a "bad" number. Only now is the PS3 finally capable of consistintly earning hundreds of millions of dollars in net profit for Sony each year. On the other hand, Sony may feel that hundreds of millions of dollars in net profit do not make up for the billions of dollars in net loss the PS3 has cost the corporation. Do you think Sony is doing the right thing by trying to get a head start on the competition?