Sony's Shuhei Yoshida says it's 'too early' to discuss next-generation consoles

Console life cycles have been extended by online and cloud saving services as well as social functions, and "it is therefore too early to talk about the end of this generation of consoles," Sony president Shuhei Yoshida said in a recent interview with French newspaper Le Monde.

"The value of cloud goes beyond the game industry with cloud computing, you can imagine services like video on all types of media, without any download," he said of Sony's acquisition of cloud service Gaikai in July. "But this technology is dependent on the Internet connection of users and requires large capacity servers. That is why we decided to add this type of functionality gradually."

Yoshida also noted that the company's previous certification procedures for its mobile division were "too stringent" and that a more fluid release schedule was necessary.

"With our mobile division, we want to reach new populations, which are not necessarily the players," he said. "It is the same for developers. Previously, it was not necessarily easy to get access to development tools for small independent studios."