PlayStation 5 Release Date Rumors: Console Coming Out in 2020 At the Earliest, Source Says
The PlayStation 5 is not coming anytime soon, at least according to a source. The next generation of consoles from Sony is unlikely to come out this year, giving players a chance to save up for the PlayStation 5 when it reportedly comes out in 2020 at the earliest.
New home consoles are not being churned out year after year like the mobile phone industry does with their products. Even then, the PlayStation 4, as well as the Xbox One, is nearly five years old by now, and even as Microsoft has stepped up their console specs via the Xbox One X, Sony has just put out an incremental upgrade in the form of the PS4 Pro so far.
Even the PlayStation 4 Pro is more than a year old now, and gamers are feeling that it might be time for a new Sony console, as Kotaku noted.
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Two people, who claimed to be directly familiar with Sony's plans for the PlayStation 5, did not know exactly when the new console will be coming out, just like everyone else. What they did know, is that the PS5 has little to no chance of launching this year, unlike earlier rumors suggesting that Sony will be working on a new unit to launch opposite the Xbox One X.
A launch in 2019 looks to be very unlikely, as well. Sony's plans are never set in stone, and that's one thing the two sources can confirm. "On a multi-year project, a lot can happen to shift schedules both forward and backward," one of the insiders said.
"At some point, Sony's probably looked at every possible date. It's all about what they think is the best sweet spot in terms of hardware," a source added, which means that any new developments from manufacturers like AMD or Intel could move up or delay the console anytime.
When it comes to news about a new home console, the bigger game development studios and the game engine developers would usually be the first to know. So far, Kotaku's Jason Schreier was not able to find one who claimed they heard anything about a new PlayStation.
Developers, however, will often work with Developer Kits or devkits for short — units that look like desktop computers and designed to work like a console prototype, for game studios to design their game for. "Super early devkits are often PCs with the CPU and GPU," according to a source familiar with Sony's console development.
Anonymous boxes like these will be very hard to spot, and Sony is likely keeping their existence a closely-guarded secret, as well.
The PlayStation 5 is almost assured to be coming out later than this year, as most rumors would agree. One analyst even puts the earliest launch date for the PS5 at 2021. For now, 2020 or later seems to be the likely date, but with hardware development moving as fast as it does now, anything can happen.
