The PlayStation 5 remains a fairly mysterious console. Given there’s little to absolutely no chance we’ll actually see Sony’s latest console at E3 2019, we’re in for a bit of a wait before we get any concrete news.
However, Hideki Yasuda, a Japanese analyst known for his gaming predictions, has offered his own take as to exactly when we can expect to see the PlayStation 5 hit shelves – as well as how much he expects it cost.
SonyObviously the predictions of an industry analysts are essentially nothing more than opinions. They’re opinions based on a hell of a lot more industry knowledge and experience than any opinions we could offer, of course, but they’re still just opinions – so don’t take the following as cold hard fact.
According to Dexerto, Yasuda believes the PS5 will land in November 2020, which certainly tallies with previous reports and would get the console out just in time for the Holiday period. A recent report on Call of Duty 2020 also revealed that staff at Treyarch believe the 2020 COD will launch on current and next gen consoles, so this prediction lines up in more ways than one.
As for how much the PS5 will set us back, Yasuda posits that the console will cost $499 (around £390) on launch, which puts it in line roughly with the current retail price of an Xbox One X.
Yasuda has also suggested Sony is aiming to have sold 15 million PS5s by March 2022. For context, the PlayStation 4 is fast approaching 100 million units sold in nearly six years, so if the company gets the pricing right, this wouldn’t exactly be an unattainable goal.
Sony’s Mark Cerny, lead architect on the PS5, gave an interview to Wired in which he revealed a number of impressive specs for the upcoming console. He confirmed that it’d feature ray tracing for more immersive graphics and audio, as well as a solid-state drive (SSD) to drastically reduce loading times.
One example Cerny showed to Wired involved Marvel’s Spider-Man. The PS4 version took 15 seconds to load into a new area, where the PS5 dev kit took an incredible 0.8 seconds.
Insomniac GamesWhile we don’t know exactly when we’ll learn more about the future of PlayStation, Cerny did rule out E3 2019, given that Sony is skipping the traditional press conference. If November 2020 really is an accurate prediction, then I imagine we’ll get an official reveal in the coming months.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.