Sony: PS4 investment 'much lighter' compared to PS3

The increase in Sony's PlayStation division's operating losses, which rose to 14.8 billion yen ($149 million) in Q1, were mainly attributed to research and development on the PlayStation 4. The beast of a console packs an eight-core semi-custom processor and powerful GPU, 8GB of DDR memory, on top of a bunch of other neat features like the ability to record and stream your gameplay. But despite the increase in operating losses, Sony maintains that the PS4 is actually much cheaper to develop than the PlayStation 3 was.

"One big difference is in the amount of investment that we are making in the platform," Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato said of the comparison between the PS3 and PS4. "PS3 was, at that time, the leading edge product."

The large difference in the R& D costs is due in large part to the PlayStation 4's use of a more common x86 chipset for the CPU. With the PS3, Sony partnered with Toshiba and IBM to develop the powerful, but exotic Cell processor.

To learn more about Sony's investment in PS4, go to GameZone>