It was confirmed by Sony Interactive Entertainment America CEO Shawn Layden, in an interview, the plans for the PlayStation 5 reveal, but it won’t be anytime soon.
The interview was made between Shawn and the German site Golem.de, the CEO was asked on whether Sony will ever release games that will only work for the PlayStation 4 Pro. Layden responded by saying:
“That will never happen!”
“With the Playstation 4 Pro we have for the first time implemented this kind of innovation within the life cycle of a console,” said Layden.
“The Pro is really only to offer advantages such as 4K resolutions and HMD for players who can and want to use that. Add to this a more stable image rate and larger hard disk space. But [PS4 owners have] no real disadvantages. Each of our games will continue to run on the classic PS4 and possibly slightly better on the Pro.”
Golem.de then asked the CEO if Sony was going to rely on the PlayStation 5 to deliver games that are not playable on the standard PS4. Layden responded by saying, “Yes. It will probably be some time.”
This is the first time that anyone from Sony has confirmed plans for the PS5. At E3 2017, Sony didn’t mention anything about a next-generation console. Instead, the company focused more on new games that are going to be released for the PS4 and the PS4 Pro within the next year.
If we go all the way back in April, the analyst of Macquarie Capital Securities, Damian Thong said that he expects Sony to release the PS5 during the second half of 2018. Thong’s prediction has a lot of weight since he predicted that the arrival date of the PS4 Pro in the fall of 2016, which turned out to be accurate.
Although he was right in the past, we can’t take his new prediction for the PS5 release date as gospel, because Sony currently doesn’t need to rush its next-generation console since the PS4 and the PS4 Pro are still selling well. The company has already sold over 60 million PS4 consoles and is already reaching 500 million games sold worldwide.
If the PS5 is revealed in 2018, it might hamper the on-going success of the PS4. Also, the PS4 Pro is fairly new and Sony wouldn’t risk alienating those who’ve recently purchased it.
Shadow of the Erdtree will launch on June 21
This was originally a requirement when the game first launched.