Here's a no-brainer: Sony is working on a next-generation video game console to succeed the hugely successful PlayStation 4.

Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida, in an interview with the Financial Times, said it is working on a successor to the PS4 but stopped short of calling it the PlayStation 5. "At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware,” he said.

His commitment to a console coincided with Microsoft's announcement that it is currently testing Project xCloud, streaming technology for playing Xbox games on phones and tablets. Public testing is expected to begin next year.

For its part, Sony does offer streaming games on the PS4 and PCs with its PlayStation Now subscription service, which had previously been available on Samsung Smart TVs, too.

Although Yoshida offered no insight on when Sony could bring a new system to market, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO John Kodera hinted at 2021, as reported by tech news site Digital Trends. “We will use the next three years to prepare the next step, to crouch down so that we can jump higher into the future," he said in May 2018, noting the PS4 was entering the “final phase of its life cycle.”

It's unlikely Sony will drop the PlayStation name as it's been so successful over the past three decades. The PlayStation 2 was the best-selling console game system ever, surpassing 155 million units sold.

While the PS4, which has sold more than 80 million since it launched in 2013, has a ways to go beat that mark, it will likely soon surpass sales of the PS3, which sold about 83.8 million, according to GameSpot. The original PlayStation, launched in Japan in 1994 and the U.S. in 1995, sold 102.4 million.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

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