Could the PS5 be released in 2018?
Before we get into the article, it is probably best to give some background on this console generation, especially for the uninitiated. In 2013 (2014 in Japan), Sony released their successor to the Playstation 3, the winner of that console generation (some people think that the Xbox 360 won that generation, but the PS3 did eventually outsell it), which was unsurprisingly called the Playstation 4.
In terms of PR, the PS4 already had an advantage over the Xbox One, Microsoft's successor to the Xbox 360. Unlike Microsoft, Sony promised that the PS4 would not need to always be online and could play pre-owned games in the traditional fashion, which contrasted with Microsoft's original statements about its plans for the Xbox One.
However they back-peddled and confirmed that they would be carrying on with the 360 model, in terms of not always needing to be online and playing pre-owned games.
Fast forward to 2017, and the PS4 is outselling the Xbox One and within that time, Sony released the Playstation Pro, to appeal to a different segment of the market. This was primarily to 4K TV owners, and now despite the success of the PS4, there are already talks of a Playstation 5. On a Twitter post made by Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki, he mentioned that Damian Thong, an analyst at the financial group Macquarie Capital Securities, said that the PS5 may arrive in the second half of 2018. Now you probably don't know who Damian is and why you should care about his prediction.
Well, Damian did successfully predict the release of both the slim version of the PS4 console and the PS4 Pro, so that does add some credence behind his words.
Would it make sense for Sony to release the Playstation 5 in 2018?
It is worth baring in mind, that Sony only announced the PS4 nine months before its release and, that the PS4 Pro is not even a year old.
If the PS5 did release next year in 2018, this might be seen as an admission of failure on Sony's part, in attracting customers to the PS4 Pro. This is a mid-gen console upgrade that is now being unfavourably compared to Microsoft's upcoming new console, the Xbox Scorpio, which is said to offer features such as true 4K. This is unlike the PS4 Pro which tends to upscale its games to 4K.
It will be interesting to see what the next few years have in store for us gamers, especially with predictions having been made in the past, that this console generation will not last as long as the previous one. Interested in more gaming news? Then please check out our pieces on topics such as the lack of female protagonists in video games and the release date of the remastered version of Full Throttle, the classic LucasArt game.
