In a recent interview with Financial Times, Sony president and CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida, insinuated that “Next Gen” hardware is the need of the hour for Sony. Yoshida, without naming the “next-gen hardware” PlayStation 5 said that “At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware”. Yoshida’s response came in after he was asked about the spectacular rise of the $70bn global smartphone gaming market.
In the past few years, we have seen the enormous evolution of mobile gaming. Thanks to the evolving capabilities of the modern day smartphone, the mobile gaming landscape has changed significantly and can even be argued that Smartphone gaming is a direct competitor of console gaming. Although most of the popular games are free of cost on smartphones such as PUBG and Fortnite, the immense revenue these games bring in terms of micro-transactions and advertisements cannot be overlooked.
Inside Sony, there have been some rumors about a possible gaming tablet that might be in the works. The idea behind the tablet is that it would connect to multiple devices as online streaming of games becomes more widespread.
Coming back to PlayStation 5, according to industry analysts, Sony might not depart from the basic platform that they have established with the PS4, “Sony would likely seek to use this successful PS4 platform as long as possible,” said Kazunori Ito, an analyst at research firm Ibbotson Associates Japan. This tells us that the new console may not actually be all that different from its predecessor in terms of basic functionality.
As to the question of when can the next PlayStation be expected, according to industry analysts, the answer seems to be the year 2020. Industry experts have been adamant about this point because they think 2019 is the year when Sony strengthens their cross-platform gaming feature. “Today, the communities around some games have evolved to the point where cross-platform experiences add significant value to players,” John Kodera, who heads Sony’s PlayStation business, recently wrote on the company’s blog. “This represents a major policy change for SIE.”
Earlier we did an article about a rumor that Sony is planning backward compatibility for its next console (PlayStation 5). You can read all about it here.
This is it, for now, leave us a comment below and tell us what you expect of the PlayStation 5.