Sony: PS4 will play used games

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 will play pre-owned games, despite earlier reports.

"That's the general expectation by consumers," he explained, before confirming the capability to Eurogamer.

"They purchase physical form, they want to use it everywhere, right? So that's my expectation."

Eurogamer later heard from a separate Sony source that the patent that started rumours of second-hand games being blocked didn't in fact relate to PS4.

Yoshida was less transparent on the European release date however. While the date is set for Christmas for the US and Japan, Europe has traditionally seen a later release for consoles.

"Europe is an enormously important market," he said.

"That's no question. So I hope European consumers can play PS4 as soon as it's available somewhere, but I'm not making promises."

PlayStation 3 launched in Europe a full four months after the US and Japan, and fans will be keen to hear reassurance the same delays won't happen again.

"For one thing the system has to be complete and we have to understand the manufacturing pace of it. Then we have to kind of look at the demand predictions and we have to decide whether we can go global or like [the rumour]. So it takes more time for us to know that."