Sony PlayStation 5 Release Date Predicted For 2018

Sony PlayStation 5 Release Date Predicted For 2018

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2018 release date?

Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong expects “Sony to release its next-generation PlayStation by the second half of 2018.” This is a pretty eye-catching prediction, as it would mean that the PlayStation 5 arrives on the market roughly twelve months from now.

Certainly there have been few other suggestions that have correlated with this opinion. With Sony only having released the PS4 Pro last year, a fully-fledged console in its own right, and the PS4 still a very credible machine, it would certainly be surprising if the PlayStation 5 was released in 2018. Some observers have already suggested that the PS4 Pro was released too soon after the original PS4 hit the stores, and Sony would be even more vulnerable to criticism if it launched its the next console generation just two years after the PS4 Pro was first unveiled.

Track record

However, it should be noted that this particular analyst has previously correctly predicted the release dates of the PS4 Pro and Slim models ahead of their respective launches. So far-fetched though a 2018 release date for the PlayStation 5 may seem, we cannot dismiss the suggestion of Thong out of hand.

Regardless of the accuracy of this prediction, we will not find out for some time whether Thong is indeed correct. The original PlayStation 4 was announced nine months prior to its ultimate release date, but the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro revisions were unveiled just months before they arrived in retail outlets; actually merely one week in the case of the Slim.

Nonetheless, if Sony were to announce and release a PlayStation 5 console, it would enable the Japanese corporation to respond to the inevitable hype that will surround the Xbox Project Scorpio. This console from Microsoft will be more powerful than the PS4 Pro, meaning that for a certain period of time that an Xbox will be the most glamorous competitor in the console niche.

Sony could effectively minimize the impact of the Scorpio by unveiling the PlayStation 5 and getting tongues wagging about this true next generation release. However, it will be difficult to produce a PS5 without impacting significantly on the sales of the existing PS4 and PS4 Pro.



There would seem to be minimal need for Sony to take such a risk considering that it is already routinely outselling its main competition. And although the Xbox Project Scorpio will be a major challenge to PlayStation hegemony, the Japanese company can always respond to this release by slashing the price of the PS4 Pro and original PS4.

Console climate

Another key consideration for Sony will be the existing video games climate. There is no doubt that the video games market is more complex and challenging than at any other time over the last 20 years, and this means that releasing a new machine into this environment will be sensitive. Indeed, Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, had previously suggested that the PlayStation 5 may never be released, indicating that it is a question of if rather than when the machine appears.

But if Sony does release a PlayStation 5 console, what can we expect from this next generation gaming rig? The first thing to state is that the specs of the machine will probably exceed those of the Xbox Project Scorpio, or else the console will simply be pointless. If the PS5 is to be released in 2018, it will not be an incremental upgrade over the existing PS4 Pro, it will be a figurative hand grenade tossed into the console marketplace.

Central to the capabilities of the PlayStation 5 will be the ability of the console to deliver true 4K gaming. The PS4 Pro does an excellent job of delivering 4K with its checkerboard technique, but it doesn’t quite have the power to deliver native 4K, and certainly not at 60 frames per second.

The first challenge for the PS5 will be to deliver 4K resolution resolution as a standard feature, and possibly to even offer native 4K at 60 frames per second. Certainly it should be possible to produce 60 frames per second at some upscaled variant of 4K, which would be a very attractive proposition for gamers.

In fact, Chris Kingsley, CTO and co-founder of developer Rebellion, even offered a particularly tantalising prospect for potential PS5 buyers. “Obviously new hardware should be able to support 4K TVs and possibly even 8K TVs at a push!” It seems rather early in the day to be talking about 8K resolution, considering that 4K televisions have yet to establish themselves as mainstream. But the technology market moves rapidly nowadays, and it is possible that Sony could trumpet 8K compatibility as a major feature of a forthcoming PS5.

PlayStation 5 VR

Virtual reality would undoubtedly be a major focus of the PS5 as well, following the success of the PlayStation VR headset. While this software has been able to deliver an excellent virtual reality experience, the fact is that it currently operates at lower resolution than the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and the standard PS4 struggles to deal with even this.

So the likelihood in the longer run is that Sony will eventually return to market with an updated version of the PlayStation VR headset, and that this could accompany the next generation PlayStation 5 console. This would then become an obvious selling point for the PS5, and we could even see the first example of native 4K VR console gaming with the PS5.

There will also unquestionably be a focus on streaming with the PS5, with Sony having already acknowledged the diminishing importance of the optical drive by declining to include a 4K Blu-ray drive with the PS4 Pro. But will Sony phase out physical discs with the PS5? Don’t count on it; this prediction has been wrongly made on many occasions!

Will this exciting machine arrive in 2018 as predicted? Let’s wait and see…