Finally. After rumor after rumor, Sony officially released a teaser for the “future of PlayStation.” People assumed that it was the PS4, but you can never be too sure about these things. Then The Wall Street Journal comes in and says that Sony won’t only reveal the new console at the event, but will also announce that it will go on sale later this year.

Details about the console have also surfaced before the February 20th PlayStation Meeting, with the WSJ revealing tidbits such as how Sony wants to “incorporate more social gaming aspects into the new machine,” and is focused on new interactions with the machine rather than simple spec improvements. AMD CPUs and GPUs are rumored to be powering not only the next PlayStation, but the next Xbox as well.

Edge also reveals that Sony is targeting an end of the year release date for the US and Japan, then early 2014 for Europe. They also mention that the controller will come with a touchpad, built into it and a new “Share” button. The Share button is interesting because the PS4 is rumored to inherently record and save the most recent 15 minutes of gameplay, which you can then edit and share online straight from the console.

Sony originally said that they would let Microsoft go first and announce the next Xbox, choosing to not reveal their cards early and give their rival a chance to make some last-minute improvements to one-up them. It seems like this was all a ruse, and unless Microsoft suddenly announces the next Xbox in 2 weeks, we’ll be seeing the next PlayStation after 6 years in this console generation.

Edge also reveals that the PS4 will be more powerful than the next Xbox, at least on paper. There, I did it. The next generation war of console fanboys has officially begun.

Stay tuned for February 20!

[via WSJ, Kotaku, The Verge]