The PS5 release date is a few years away, but once it does come around it will bring with it a major change, according to the latest rumours.
The PS4 will this year celebrate its fifth birthday, with Sony’s hit console selling over 73.6million units since then.
Analysts have predicted the PlayStation 4 will break the 100m sales barrier before it’s time is up, but when it will get replaced remains a mystery.
According to the latest predictions, PS4 gamers still have a few more years before they need to worry about saving up for a PS5.
NPD analyst Mat Piscatella he expects the PS5 release date to be in 2020, and he would be surprised if it launches before then, SegmentNext reported.
He said: “2020 is what I have in my forecast.
“The data suggest there’s no need to do it earlier.
“But I’ve been surprised before so I’m as interested in this as anyone.”
Piscatella’s predictions tallies up with what other figures in the gaming industry have said about the PS5 release date.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot predicted at the end of last year that the PS5 release date would be a “minimum of two years away”.
This would put the PS5 as launching in late 2019 or 2020.
While industry analyst Michael Pachter has also predicted the PS5 would launch in 2019 or 2020, with Pachter believing a 2020 launch is more likely.
He said: “I think that’s exactly when you’ll see one (PS5) 2019 or 2020, and if I had to bet, it’s 2020.
“Sony’s making so much money with the PS4 that I think they’ll continue to milk it as long as they can milk it.
“And I think the natural extension of that is the PS4 Pro becomes the default PS4, and they just knock that price down to $250 when they can and they keep selling it – a tonne of those.”
When the PS5 does launch, it could bring with it a radical shake-up for console gamers across the globe.
Final Fantasy 15 director Hajime Tabata recently spoke about the future of console gaming.
And he believes the next generation of consoles will be powered by the cloud.
Earlier this month Tabata-san said the gaming industry will follow the music and film industries towards streaming services, GamingBolt reported.
He predicted a future where gamers pay subscription fees to access the games they want, instead of buying games individually.
Microsoft have already made steps towards such a vision, with the Xbox Game Pass recently being updated to include brand new, exclusive releases.
One of the biggest hurdles towards fully-fledged cloud-based gaming is ensuring gamers have widespread access to the required high-speed internet connection.
While it remains to be seen if the PS5 is a cloud-based console, it does look like it’ll be a powerhouse.
Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi last year hinted at what the PS5 would be capable of.
And he said it would have no problem running games at a staggering resolution of 8K.
He said: “It takes six months to create a single car. It’s over-specced for PS4 Pro. So we are building for future versions of the console rather than the one we see today”.
Speaking about how Gran Turismo Sport would run on PS5, he said: “I think it would be no problem to run it at 8K even”.