When and Where PS5 could be fully revealed
Sony has announced in its latest financial call that the PlayStation 5 won’t be launching anytime between now and April 2020.
This is hardly a surprise given the PlayStation creator expects to sell 16 million consoles between now and then, adding to the impressive 96.8 million consoles it has now shipped since launch.
With PS4 fast approaching 100 million units sold is it any wonder we won’t see the PS5 soon? Sure Sony could launch and herald in a new generation of gaming, but when PS4 is selling so well, why would there be a need? There’s not exactly a rush, it’s not like games look and play terribly at the moment, likely in part to Sony extending the generation with the release of the more powerful PS4 Pro.
It does feel to me like a new generation is due, new ‘AAA’ releases are drying up and it feels very much like the industry is preparing for the next step, but given that all previous generation games will be compatible with the new consoles anyway, it’s not like there is a rush to get these games ready, since everyone will be checking out the improvements on their previous games, all while clearing their previous generation backlog. We all know when new consoles launch there’s never too much to play, so having the option to play games you already own is a very attractive one.
So when will the PS5 launch? Well, all signs seem to be pointing to Q4 2020, with November 2020 in particular seemingly being the ideal time for the console to arrive, making it exactly 7 years since the launch of the PS4 in the United States and Canada. This would follow the same timeline of PS3 to PS4, so it makes sense that we’ll see PS5 before the end of 2020, since it’s unlikely the console generation will extend beyond this timeline, especially with the likelihood of Microsoft launching its new console in advance of Q4 2020.
If we presume Sony will launch the console in November 2020, when will it be fully revealed? We already know it exists thanks to a Wired exclusive which let us know some details of what to expect, however there’s still a lot to learn, such as what it’ll look like, how much it will cost, what special features it’ll have which will make it stand apart from PS4 and of course what games will launch alongside it.
Given we are going with a late 2020 release, E3 2020 could be a perfect time, if Sony is intent on returning to the conference, although that would be bucking a trend as it seems most major publishers are more intent on going their own way. Instead, it may be that Sony will follow a similar route to the PS4, which is first revealed in February 2013 at an event separate to E3. This was around nine months before launch which seems the perfect time to get people ready and get enough hype to build up pre-orders. But there is another option. What if Sony was to reveal the console in front of thousands of fans. What better way to build hype for a product than to launch it in front of your most ardent supporters and what better place to find ardent supporters than at the PlayStation Experience?
PlayStation Experience is an event Sony decided to skip this time around, mostly due to the fact that it had not a lot to show for 2019 that it hadn’t shown already, but given it’ll have a new console up its sleeve, as well as a bunch of launch titles, what better place to reveal the console? At E3, journalists usually moan about the fact that the companies go into too much detail or spend too much time talking about one thing, however when you are hosting an event with a bunch of people who want to eat up every single detail they can about their favourite product, it would seem a bit of a no brainer to launch a new console in front of their eyes, after all, these are the same people you are trying to sell it too.
Whatever happens in the next generation console space over the year is going to be interesting, but we’re guessing that if you are reading this article a year from now you’ll already know all there is to know about when you can get your hands on Sony’s latest console.