Sony explains why the PS4 was a no-show at its own debut

This week's hours-long PlayStation Meeting gave gamers their first glimpse at the new DualShock 4 controller, detailed the philosophy of the PlayStation 4, showed off a half-dozen games and demoed three new engines.

But there was one glaring omission: The PS4's debut was missing the PS4.

I ran into Shuhei Yoshida, president of Worldwide Studios at Sony Computer Entertainment, after the show and asked him why the console wasn't shown during the presentation or after.

"We need something to show off later," he said, half kidding.

Will it be shown at E3, I asked.

"We're still trying to decide that," he said.

Yoshida then went on to explain the thinking behind Sony's decision to have the controller at the event but not the console that uses it.

"The console is just a box," he said. "The controller was very important to show because it has the share button, but the console is just a console."

The point of this week's show, Yoshida said, was to get across the philosophy of its new console, those five pillars detailed by executives and developers throughout the night.