PS5: what will the Sony PlayStation 5 be like and when will we see it?

Update: Sony just announced that, over the last four years, it has sold 70 million PS4 systems. That's a pretty impressive number, all things considered, and might be good indicator that the company is thinking long and hard about the PS5.

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New game consoles are always exciting, especially when the console in question is the PS5, Sony's fifth installment of the PlayStation consoles. And while we'd like to stoke the rumor flames and tell you there's a console coming in the near future – it's hard to say when we'll see the PS5 (or PlayStation 5 if you prefer).

Here's some good news: while we're not sure when the PS5 is coming, Sony President and CEO Shawn Layden confirmed in an interview with Golem.de that the PlayStation 5 would be coming eventually ... just not anytime soon.

It makes sense Sony isn't jumping on the next-gen bandwagon just yet. The company practically just released the PS4 Pro, a mid-generation console upgrade that's expanded the hardware's functionality sufficiently, and probably still sees a lot of life in the fourth-generation PlayStation.

Check out the video below to see Jon and Gerald discuss the differences between the PS4, PS4 Pro and PS4 VR.

There's also the question of what, exactly, the PS5 could do better.

Sony now has a system that's capable of both HDR and 4K upscaled gameplay which, for most gamers, is more than enough for the time-being.

Unless Sony has a treasure trove of 8K TVs ready to ship out exclusively with PS5 consoles, there might not be a point in launching a new system right now if the focus is going to be on visual enhancements.

But, perhaps even more importantly, the console's existence and recent success has called into question whether a proper follow-up to the PS4 will ever be needed. We might be moving towards a more iterative hardware cycle.

When Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, was asked about the PS5, he responded that he thought the PS5 was a question of 'if' rather than 'when'

Though Sony briefly had the most powerful console on the market with the PS4 Pro, Microsoft threw a spanner into the works in November 2017 with its Xbox One X. It's too early to tell just yet but that could spell trouble for Sony.

But just because Microsoft has launched a new system, that doesn't necessarily mean that Sony will counter immediately – there are good reasons to believe that Sony is less comfortable with the idea of taking a mobile phone-style “upgrade every year” approach to consoles in the future, including comments from Yoshida himself.

Also, it boils down to simple economics: it’s well documented that the longer a console can persist on the high-street shelves, the more profitable it becomes, as economies of scale reduce manufacturing costs, while a large install base means publishers can sell more copies of their latest games.

What does that mean for the PS5? Will Sony's fifth console come to fruition? What would it do differently? What can it do differently?

For right now, at least, we don't have all the answers.

But instead of twiddling our thumbs and waiting for Sony to plop the next system on our laps, we've done some digging to try and get to the bottom of the mystery that's kept us up at night: what is the PS5 and when is it coming out?

PS5 Release date

With no official word from Sony, it's difficult to know exactly when we might get to see a PS5, so all we have for the moment is the guesswork of industry analysts to go on.

Analysts are predicting we could see the PlayStation 5 as soon as 2018 but the most likely outcome is 2019. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, analyst Damian Thong (who previously predicted the PS4 Pro and Slim) suggested that the console would arrive in the latter half of 2018.

Another analyst, however, believes we'll have to wait a little longer. Speaking to GamingBolt, Michael Pachter said that though he thinks the PS5 will be a half step and will be backwards compatible with the PS4 Pro he doesn't think we'll see it until "2019 or 2020 but probably 2019."

This slightly later release, he says, would make more sense as it would fall in line with predictions for when the 4K TV market in the US will reach 50%. "I think Sony has probably got the next console cycle lined up already", he says, "I think they already know what they've got to do."

More recently Pachter reiterated this claim, saying that Sony would most likely release the new console in 2020. He added that at this time he thinks the PS4 Pro will become the base model PlayStation and will see a reduction in price.

We’ve got the TVs: can we have proper 4K gaming?

The PS4 Pro offers a tantalising hint of what 4K gaming could be like. But the stark fact remains: it still doesn’t have the grunt to do native 4K consistently.

Its “checkerboard” technique of taking single pixels and using each to render four pixels in 4K resolution is clever and it can do native 4K output but it often has to sacrifice resolution to keep performance consistent.

Chris Kingsley, CTO and co-founder of developer Rebellion, dangles an even more ambitious technological carrot in front of a putative PS5: “Obviously new hardware should be able to support 4K TVs and possibly even 8K TVs at a push!”

Native 4K support, surely, will be a basic requirement of the PlayStation 5. And if Sony cracks that particular problem with alacrity, it could even mean that a PlayStation 5 will arrive sooner than anticipated.

The VR effect

Sony recently became the first console manufacturer to embrace virtual reality, thanks to the PlayStation VR, but if you examine PlayStation VR closely – and observe how it operates on the PS4 Pro – it invites speculation about how a PS5 might take VR to a new level.

Currently, PlayStation VR operates at lower resolution than the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive – but, as it stands, even its current incarnation almost pushes the base PlayStation 4 beyond its limits. Running a PlayStation VR on a PS4 Pro brings improved frame-rates, which are very handy indeed in terms of the overall VR experience, but even the PS4 Pro can’t overcome the resolution constraints set by the PlayStation VR headset.

Sony will want to return to the market with a second, markedly higher-tech iteration of PlayStation VR

So it’s a good bet that, presuming PlayStation VR is successful (and it already appears to be catching on) Sony will want to return to the market with a second, markedly higher-tech iteration: which would provide an obvious selling point for the PlayStation 5.

And if a PlayStation VR 2 headset could be sold without an external black box, it should be markedly cheaper, further accelerating VR’s march into the mainstream.

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