And so, we're a mere hours away from finding out what the "Future of PlayStation" looks like. Sony will hold its PlayStation Live press event at 11pm (UK time) tonight and the world will know exactly what the company's next-generation console is capable of and whether it will sit nicely in the confines of our AV equipment racks.

Certainly, if it looks like any of the fantasy concept renders that eager fanboys and fangals have been generating over the last year or so, it won't. Almost all of them go so far out on a limb that you'd have to dedicate a whole section of your living room just to accommodate them.

There were quite a few themes that ran throughout many of them. Clear there are polymers, round and curved disc mounts, and an overall philosophy that the final product will look more like a heavily modified PC than a games console.

The controllers too had their own concept renders and - save for those done as a gag - they could all technically see pride of place in a gaming set-up. Some may even be close to something Mad Catz or the like would do.

However, the sad part about these renders is that, when the clock strikes 23:00 hours and Sony Computer Entertainment pulls the sheet off its shiny new PlayStation 4, all this wonderful and entertaining work will be consigned to the scrap heap. That's why Pocket-lint presents you with a gallery of some of those we particularly liked, gleaned from all corners of the World Wide Web.

We hope you enjoy looking at them for one last time as much as we did when finding them. And do join us for the live announcement itself, as we have partnered with Sony Computer Entertainment UK to bring you the PlayStation 4 launch event live stream on this very website. You need go nowhere else.

We'll also be in New York City at the event itself, and will bring you all the news as it breaks.

This piece was partly based on an idea seen on Kotaku, although we sourced all the images ourselves. If you are the originator of any of the concept renders, please let us know and we'll link accordingly.