PlayStation 5 Seen to Launch Between 2018 and 2020

With the success of PS4 Pro, outselling Xbox One in millions worth of sales and the launching of game consoles from Sony, including PS4 Slim and PS VR, there were speculations that last year ended the cycle of the PlayStation, in terms of having a new addition to its lineup. However, an analyst thinks otherwise and now, there are rumors of a PS5 going to be released mid or late 2018.

According to Damian Thong, Macquarie Research Analyst, the PS5 will be yet another powerful game console and it will come with a 10 TFLOPs GPU. The possibility was implied at the financial report on the profits of Sony Corporation and the financial figures of its Game and Network Services department.

Thong said that the growth profit in that division showed sustainability with a forecasted OP growth in the fiscal year from the continuous increase in sales and profits of software. Despite the presence of competition with Microsoft’s game consoles as well as PC gaming, it was the success of the PS VR, with 915,000 sold balances the ecosystem, so to speak. With the launching of PS5, Sony will be securing its status in video gaming industry.

For financial analyst, Michael Pachter from Wedbush Morgan, this is not the case. That is, consumers should expect the release of PS5 between 2019 and 2020. With Project Scorpio, there will not really be a successor to Xbox One but only an upgraded version. This is the same with PS4 where PS4 Pro will have to be fully compatible with PS4. That said, he believes that a PS5 2018 release is not about to happen. He thinks that game consoles will have new versions every three years and the new one will be compatible with the previous model.

Meanwhile, another speculation is about the possible versions of the PS5. According to rumors, there will be two versions and one will be released with a VR headset. This is highly probable given the success of the PS4 VR.

But on the rumored release, some are looking at a later date since PS4 is still enjoying its success. While there is no doubt that  this will convince Sony to work on a better and  new model so as not to lose momentum, taking consumers attention from PS4 can be a premature move.

PlayStation 4 was launched four years ago and in the course of things, manufacturing of a new console should be right around this time. However, Sony has been mum about the PS5 or if there will be one, really. But with the time interval between the launching of the PS4 after PS3, the development cycle of game consoles might be taking longer. But then again, with the success in sales of PS4, we can look forward to seeing PS5 in the future.

The sales of the PS4 in Japan were high with 4.5 million units sold and with around 200,000 of these units are PS4 Pro models. Moreover, globally, over 53.4 million units were sold. But whether PlayStation 5 will be released in 2020 or earlier, it doesn’t really matter. What it does is that we can expect a PS4 in this lifetime.