PlayStation 4 to Launch Alongside Xbox 720

New reports have emerged suggesting Sony plans to launch its next-generation PS4 console alongside Microsoft's Xbox 720.

News of the two, currently unconfirmed, devices' possibly simultaneous release broke via Eurogamer Wednesday. Eurogamer reported that PlayStation Europe boss Jim Ryan had confirmed Sony's belief that it would be "undesirable" to release the future console after Microsoft's.

"I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition [with the next PlayStation]," Eurogamer reported Ryan as saying. Unfortunately for PlayStation fans looking for a quick release, Ryan went on to dismiss the idea that the PS4 would be released soon, insisting: "There's still a lot of unfinished business on PS3."

Ryan's comments are the latest in a long line of conflicting reports regarding the PS4. Most recently Edge magazine issued a report claiming a first party Sony studio had cut PS3 development to focus on the PS4.

Prior to this, Develop had issued its own report suggesting Sony had begun work on the PlayStation 4. Citing a "trusted source connected to the matter" for its claims, Develop reported that Sony had begun preliminary work on the PS4. The source did not clarify which of Sony's 16 first-part studios was working on the console. Develop went on to allege that the new console would be ready to launch "before 2014."

Earlier still, the Digitimes had run a contradictory piece claiming "unnamed sources" had revealed that the new console was set for release in 2012 alongside Nintendo's Wii U.

The Digitimes reported that Sony had instructed the Taiwan-based Foxcon and Pegatron Technology manufacturers to begin assembly of as many as 20 million PS4s earlier this year -- Foxconn and Pegatron Technology are the two companies that assembled Sony's current PS3 console.

To date Sony has declined all requests for comment regarding its next PlayStation.