The successor to the PlayStation 3 is currently in development, Sony confirmed during the company's investor meeting today.

Executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato was asked to explain the rising research and development costs for the company's fiscal year. "In the game segment, we have the NGP to launch later this year. So we have development expenses to be incurred for this product," he explained."For the home console, the PS3 still has a product life, but this is a platform business, so for the future platform - when we will introduce the product I cannot discuss - but development work is underway, so the costs are incurred there."Nintendo recently announced plans to reveal its new console at E3 next month, with a full product release in 2012. Meanwhile, Microsoft began hiring for its "next generation console" this past March.