Sony states PlayStation 5 entering latter half of life cycle

Records from a Sony shareholders meeting have met gamers with a startling announcement. Sony Group president Hiroki Totoki stated that the PS5 is in “the latter half of the console cycle”. Launching in late 2020, this is a natural development, even if it might feel a bit rushed. The second phase of life does raise questions about what might come next for the console line and its games.

The Inevitable Follow-up

While there haven’t been any announcements yet about a new console, a sequel to the PlayStation 5 is inevitable. Sony’s console line has run since the initial system hit shelves 30 years ago in 1994. With the company’s place among the big three consoles firmly established, the PS6 is just a matter of when.

There are still questions about what direction the platform will take, but again we can take a guess. Unlike Nintendo, Sony has been largely consistent with its console direction. It’s likely to be a simple architecture like the last two generations and to have different release models at different price points.

“Top View Photo of Sony DualSense Wireless” (CC BY 2.0) by verchmarco

What Happens to the Games?

An entertainment platform is only as good as its media, which is why we all tend towards some services more than others. In gaming, there have been concerns in the last generation about platform exclusivity. This issue is likely overstated, however.

Concerns about exclusivity come from Microsoft’s purchase of companies Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. It would be possible for Microsoft to release some series only on their Xbox and Windows platforms after these purchases. This was until their attempted blockbuster Starfield was released to an underwhelming reception. With Microsoft hoping to recover costs through a multiplatform approach, a more open future is likely.

We’ll see new games released similar to what we see in online casinos. Ontario casino online services like LuckyDays, for example, host more than 1,500 titles shared across many other platforms. These come from many developers, where each platform succeeds because of its user experience and design. This same direction will likely apply to next-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles, while Nintendo continues to do its own thing.

Games that already exist on PS5 will again probably follow the direction laid by the prior generation. Thanks to the similar architecture of the PS4 and PS5, backward compatibility on PS5 is universal. It’s almost guaranteed to be a similar case for the PS6 looking backward to the PS5 and PS4. Emulation of the PS1 and PS2 would also be a relatively simple task. However, the vastly different cell architecture of the PS3 might rule it out of backward compatibility.

Regardless of when the PS6 arrives, we’ve still got at least another four years of PS5 ahead of us. We wouldn’t expect any price changes, but we expect a growing library of impressive titles. There’s never been a better time to be a gamer, and the next few years should end the console with a bang.