Yahoo Finance Playstation 5? Next-generation hardware is 'necessary' says Sony as it confirms work on PS4 successor
Japanese technology giant Sony has spoken for the first time about its plans for the next-generation successor of the successful Playstation 4 video game console.
"At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware," said Sony President Kenichiro Yoshida in an interview with the Financial Times, but stopped short of naming any new console Playstation 5.
The commitment to a next-generation console comes as discussion begins to heat up over the next round of the so-called 'console wars' and the future of dedicated gaming hardware.
Microsoft, Sony's main rival in the home gaming market, confirmed at the E3 2018 conference in June that its engineers were working on a next-generation successor to the Xbox One X console. Meanwhile, third-party publishers such as Bethesda announced that they were working on blockbuster games destined for the next-generation, rather than the current PS4 and Xbox One consoles.
However, with the emergence of cloud-streaming game services, such as Microsoft's recently announced Project xCloud, there is likely to be a significant shift in the gaming market when the PS5 and next Xbox emerge.
With both Sony and Microsoft committing to high-end machines, which will certainly feature 4K output, they will likely be positioned as the best way to experience high-end video games. While streaming services will offer similar games played in a scaled-back capacity.
Sony already has its Playstation Now subscription-based streaming service, which allows gamers to stream select Playstation games on PC or PS4, but with Microsoft bringing its own streaming service to mobile devices Sony will be looking to expand its offering.
Industry rumours suggest that both the PS5 and the next Xbox will not feature a significant shift in architecture, but that Sony and Microsoft will offer multiple hardware solutions for different types of players. A recent patent suggested that Sony could be looking at backwards compatibility for PS5, a feature that has served the Xbox One well in recent months.
Until now, Sony has not been as forthcoming with its next-generation or streaming plans as Microsoft. The Playstation 4 has been incredibly successful for the company, easily beating its main rival Xbox One in sales terms.
Sony recently revealing that it had sold over 82 million consoles since its release in 2013, including the re-modelled PS4 Slim and premium PS4 Pro. While Microsoft have stopped releasing official sales data for the Xbox One, it is believed that the total number of Xbox Ones sold is less than half of Sony's PS4 total.
It is likely that Sony want to keep the current generation rolling as long as it can to capitalise on its sales lead and significantly stronger line-up of exclusive games including Marvel's Spider-Man, which was reportedly the fastest selling game of the year in its opening week. Sony still has a strong slate of PS4 games for 2019, including Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding and The Last of Us Part Two.
With the face of the console industry likely to change in the next-generation, it is no surprise that Microsoft are keener to pull the trigger. While no concrete release dates have been suggested for the Playstation 5 or the next Xbox, industry analysts believe the next-generation will likely start in 2020.
