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[PlayStation 4 - All the news|All the facts|Every video of all the games| Official pictures| PS4 Specs]

PS3 owners thinking about upgrading to a PS4 may have to scrap their library of digital titles and start over, according to one PlayStation executive.

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida was quoted by Engadget as claiming that PSN games won't transfer from PS3 to the new console and nor will game saves.

This is likely due to the radically different hardware architecture of both machines (the PS3 being based on Cell technology).

But Yoshida said Sony will try to make digital purchases playable "in some form".

Sony today allows PSN accounts to work across all its games systems - from PS3 to Vita - and has allowed for previously purchased games to be redownloaded on new hardware. Whether this is technically feasible is the key question.

The PlayStation firm has already suggested that some older games could be streamed to PS4 using the Gaikai service.

Update:Yoshida has told Polygon that it could be possible for PS4's future cloud services to recognise users' PS3 PS Store purchases, if Sony should "choose" to make it so.

"We could do so if we choose to," he said. "We know who purchased what as a record. But we are working on service plans and we haven't decided."

Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 at a New York press conference on Wednesday.

The PS4 release date is set for "holiday 2013", likely across Japan, Europe and the US.