Some experts have argued that the current generation of consoles might be the last one, but it seems that Sony doesn't agree.
Sony's chief financial officer Masaru Kato confirmed that a portion of the company's Research & Development budget is reserved to the PlayStation 3 successor as well as Sony's upcoming NGP handheld.
"We have a portable, NGP, to be launched later this year, so we have development expenses to be incurred for this product. And for the home equipment, the PS3, this still has a product life, but this is a platform business," he said.
"So for the future platform, when we will be introducing what product I cannot discuss that, but our development work is already underway and the costs are incurred there."
We already know that Nintendo is working on Wii's successor and that it will announce it during the E3, but this is the first official acknowledgment from Sony that they working on PS3's successor. A similar announcement is yet to be made by Microsoft regarding the Xbox 360's successor.
It is worth noting that Kato's announcement contradicts Sony's CEO Kaz Hirai who stated in March that they are "not even debating" any home consoles for the near future while PlayStation 3 is still selling so well and only half way through its intended 10 year lifecycle.