Jack Tretton on PlayStation 4

Its announcement, along with the announcement of the next Xbox, has been rumored time and time again. Sitting in the same room as Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Jack Tretton, Forbes decided to pop the question — when will we hear about PlayStation 4?

“PlayStation 3 is really just hitting its stride. And technologically, I don’t think it’s possible to provide any advancement beyond what we have,” Jack told the biweekly publication. “What we’ve seen from the competition is trying to add features that already exist in PlayStation 3. We invested heavily in that, we rolled a very heavy rock up a steep hill, through the launch period. But now I think that all pays off, and we’ve got a long run way behind it. So, I wouldn’t look for any discussion of a next generation PlayStation for quite some time.”

The competition hasn’t exactly prompted them to jump start new hardware production, either.

“I think there’s ground to be carved out for everybody. But I didn’t see anything about Nintendo’s announcement that said ‘Oh, we’d better get working on rolling out a new PlayStation here pretty soon.’

“Our attitude is kind of ‘welcome to the party.’ If you’re looking at being a multimedia entertainment device, if you’re looking at high def gaming, that was 2006 for us.”

Sounds like PlayStation 3 owners won’t be buying new hardware anytime soon — unless we’re talking PlayStation Vita.