Yeah I just read that info on an other site and to be honest I don't know what to think about it.
ND Engine 3.1 used right now (I believe it's 3.1 not 4.0) is definately a great piece of engine, perfectly fitted into the PS3. The last of Us shows some definite improvement in the AI department, rendering was top notch from Uncharted 2 and on. If they can manage to make it work flawlessly on the PS4 then why not.
On the other hand, I'm not sure whether we would have as cutting egde games from purely technical standpoint from Naughty Dog this gen if they would adopt the "perfectly good" engine from the PS2 era. I even dare say that most probably not even close. And that may be the case in the 8th gen.
Second issue is, how flexible is the engine, how will it manage different genres for example? This gen ND developed two pretty close IPs, so we have no idea is it viable, to develop for example open world RPG, or a 2D platformer. This may be an indication that ND may stick to both Uncharted and The Last of Us next gen. I am perfectly fine with this since Uncharted is my favourite franchise ever, and TLoU (I will find out in about 2 hours) looks like it may top it. But those who were counting on the creative side of Naughty Dog (and they proved they can be very creative) may be dissapointed.
But I remember, I think from Uncharted bonus movies, they talked how hard was the transition from PS2 to PS3 for them, it was a slaughter, a lot of people resigned then. So from this point of view I can understand that they don't want this scenario to happen again. On the other hand they partially blamed very complex architecture of the PS3, which shouldn't be the issue with the PS4 so who knows really :P
So it is happening...PS4 preorder.
Greatness Awaits!
