The rumour mill is churning

In case you hadn’t noticed, the next-generation rumour rollercoaster is in full swing. Following on from last week’s Orbis rumours, VG247 has posted a report that claims Sony is “confident” its next platform will beat the Xbox 360’s successor to market.

According to the website, the “design goalposts” for the next PlayStation were set in stone at least two years ago, with Sony eager to rectify the mistakes it made with PS3.

An unnamed source said:

Sony are completely in the belief that they have the jump on Microsoft this time. You should be watching the timing of next year’s E3 keynotes, and who’s going to go first.

The insider explained that Sony has already informed top publishers about the platform, and that “most developers” will be fully briefed by the end of the year. More information is expected to be issued at a top-secret US event next month.

The report continues that there is some speculation Sony will utilise DirectX for its next platform as opposed to a custom Sony API. It has been strongly rumoured that the next PlayStation will not be based on the PS3’s CELL, but rather a more accessible AMD chip.

Allegedly, Crytek was scaling its technology based on the assumption that PS4 would be using a 24-core CELL processor (as opposed to the eight-core unit in PS3), but the CryEngine developer was forced to halt development and start afresh when it was informed that the next PlayStation would not use the CELL at all.

VG247 concludes that elements of the PS Vita’s launch hardware were tweaked before release in order to ensure that the device would be able to operate directly with the PS4 in a similar manner to the Nintendo Wii U.

As always, take all of these rumours with a huge pinch of salt. Things are certainly hotting up though, aren’t they?

[source vg247.com]