In Theory: Could Sony Release PlayStation 5 in 2018?

[Megalith]

Eurogamer’s got a long-winded piece on whether the next PlayStation could legitimately be a new console and not just a refresh. While a potential PS5 would enjoy the “advantages of AMD's latest CPU architecture, and a GPU that benefits from five years of improvements to Radeon technology, not to mention a 4x boost to pure compute power,” it would probably fail at resetting the paradigm, especially when compared to the recent Pro. Could future generations of hardware consist of base consoles that accept certain upgrades? Releasing so many different consoles in such a short span of time is hard to swallow.

…is a new PlayStation in 2018 technically feasible? In theory, yes. But would the resulting console deliver [a] generational leap? That's less clear. Elsewhere, Cerny has discussed the notion of an eight-teraflop console required for native 4K gaming, and that's an interesting figure to put out there, because such a machine could conceivably be built for a late 2018 launch. But the question remains as to whether this is enough to kickstart a new console generation. Higher-resolution versions of existing games doesn't really constitute the "breakthrough experiences" Cerny associates with next-gen hardware.

 

[Derfman]

I remember the days when console releases were a lot more frequent. It may just end up becoming fact that the extremely long life spans that the 360 and PS3 experienced before becoming a last generation console was a mere fluke.

 

[grtitan]

For a while, consoles had a release every 5 years or so, but at the same time, the next target should be 4k, but people are not really rushing to buy those tvs and seems like the ps4pro is d cent enough for 1080p.

Maybe they should wait a bit more.

 

[Stoly]

the next target should be 4k, but people are not really rushing to buy those tvs

Yes they are.

There are plenty of cheap 4k TVs and many of them are pretty good.

 

[Lunas]

Well first off PS4 pro are not really easy to get right now I think most people are fine with regular PS4 as 4k TV's are not in most homes yet. And most current users don't see a compelling reason to go from PS4 to PS4 pro.

Also I believe sony has said there will not be a PS5 and that they were planning on moving to a 6 month refresh cycle with the consoles being replaced by more powerful consoles of the same line so PS4 2018 model will be more powerful than even the pro... I believe Xbox has decided to do similar...

Yes they are.

There are plenty of cheap 4k TVs and many of them are pretty good.

I don't own one my 1080p dumb tv I have had for 12 years now still works great my 13 year old 720p 37 inch still works great I currently have no plans for replacing either. With a 4k I would rather spend the 300-400 elsewhere...

 

[MrBonk]

They should wait and actually support pro properly. Because it's abysmally bad as it is now.

Every game should be required to make use of the extra power for either higher framerate, or higher resolution. Or Both and give the user the choice.

It should be mandated for every game. And why Sony hasn't done so has only served to undermine this pathetic 400$ upgrade.

And then there's the part where many titles are still failing to hit 1080p resolution at all or fail to scale beyond it. It's just bad.
Decade after 1080p hits the market, and consoles still can't get 1080p+16xAF@60FPS consistently.

 

[maxius]

no its not people update their cell phones yearly this is perfectly reasonable to have a 5 year cycle with a mid cycle hardware refresh (pro)

 

[polonyc2]

Sony should wait until 4K sets gain a bigger market share...no point continually releasing these upgraded versions if it currently most benefits a tiny portion of the market

 

[daglesj]

Consoles are becoming a total mess of mixed up tech and abilities. You used to buy a console because you knew you were sorted and good to go for 5-7 years at least. You didn't have to play the constant catch up/upgrade game.

This will eventually kill them, as no one will dare buy a console in case another better one is announced 6 months later.

And no...consoles are not like phones. Normal people don't spend $700 a year in one go on phones so you shouldn't have to buy a $400-$500 console every 18 months.

 

[Uvaman2]

That would be perfectly fine if games are 100% compatible both ways. So basically ps5 you can get higher graphics than ps4 but ps4 get the full ps4 experience kind of like tweaking for less gaming pc vs more gaming pc.. i think its completely doable.

 

[Uvaman2]

So ps4 , 5 xbone and a half so on... yet, the switch with its weak ass specs is eating everyone's candy.

 

[spintroniX]

 

[Ur_Mom]

That's so beautiful!

Back then, when they did things like that, you got some way better features. Console revisions were more than just how many polygons you could push. You could go from 56 color pallet with 16 colors on screen at once to a 256 color pallet with 64 colors on screen, higher resolution (when you were sub 480, every little bit helped!), more sprites on screen, larger sprites, better sound. Now, you get more speed, higher resolution (1080p to 2160p is good for some, but it's not as noticeable as 240 to 480). Sound is about the same, graphics are just a little more detailed, but it's not some major paradigm shift.

I wouldn't mind a new console, but growing up with the older ones, these newer ones just underwhelm me. They aren't bad, but they don't bring that huge improvement home. I still buy them because the games are great, but it's just not the huge "Wow! Look at those graphics. Oh, the sound is so much better! Things are so fast! This is great!". Now, it's "This is cool. Yea, it's a little better than the older version. Cool.".

 

[Uvaman2]

That's so beautiful!

Back then, when they did things like that, you got some way better features. Console revisions were more than just how many polygons you could push. You could go from 56 color pallet with 16 colors on screen at once to a 256 color pallet with 64 colors on screen, higher resolution (when you were sub 480, every little bit helped!), more sprites on screen, larger sprites, better sound. Now, you get more speed, higher resolution (1080p to 2160p is good for some, but it's not as noticeable as 240 to 480). Sound is about the same, graphics are just a little more detailed, but it's not some major paradigm shift.

I wouldn't mind a new console, but growing up with the older ones, these newer ones just underwhelm me. They aren't bad, but they don't bring that huge improvement home. I still buy them because the games are great, but it's just not the huge "Wow! Look at those graphics. Oh, the sound is so much better! Things are so fast! This is great!". Now, it's "This is cool. Yea, it's a little better than the older version. Cool.".

I wanto to say paradigm shifts like you say ( i agree) stopped with the Dreamcast... For sure ps3

 

[Tengis]

Next console should be 4k? Fuck that. I'll take frame rate over resolution 100% of the time. I still game on 1080p as I refuse to sacrifice performance for a bit of quality.

 

[tunatime]

Just put one put a year and have games have low to higend settings like pc games do.

 

[Squall_Rinoa89]

Am I the only one who remembers when Consoles had a 10yr life cycle????

PS5 in 2018? No thanks. PS4 can still churn out top notch titles.

 

[N4CR]

Am I the only one who remembers when Consoles had a 10yr life cycle????

PS5 in 2018? No thanks. PS4 can still churn out top notch titles.

Username checks out lol. And agreed. I still have a fat PS2 for this reason exactly. Best hassle free emulator for PS1 and PS2 games + DVDs you can get.
We should welcome this - it means they'll be closer to midrange PCs and it will only benefit us. Best part is this time around it's X86 so migration/cross console release is less hassle. You can have your cake and eat it this way.

 

[grtitan]

Username checks out lol. And agreed. I still have a fat PS2 for this reason exactly. Best hassle free emulator for PS1 and PS2 games + DVDs you can get.
We should welcome this - it means they'll be closer to midrange PCs and it will only benefit us. Best part is this time around it's X86 so migration/cross console release is less hassle. You can have your cake and eat it this way.

Actually, you might be into something, if Sony is that smart, PS5 should include out of the box backwards compatibility with all previous PlayStations and i would actually buy a console again!

 

[alamox]

i do believe that gaming will ultimately shift into streaming, and who ever scores the last console's exclusives will have an easy start in this new world, that my guess should be around 2025, if sony is planning a new console their window is closing in, 2018/2019 would be ideal.
beside there hasn't been a new console release, ps4pro and scorpio are not new consoles, they are just the same consoles with recommanded settings instead of minimum...can hardly call that a new console.
imagine if the ps4 was released to play ONLY ps3 games at 1080p, meaning no new god of war/uncharted4/zerodawn, etc, you can only play PS3 catalogue remastered to full HD, how in the world can you call this a new console ?

 

[haste.]

Sony should wait until 4K sets gain a bigger market share...no point continually releasing these upgraded versions if it currently most benefits a tiny portion of the market

I think that the penetration of 4k sets is much higher than most people perceive.

 

[haste.]

So ps4 , 5 xbone and a half so on... yet, the switch with its weak ass specs is eating everyone's candy.

Let's temper that enthusiasm - the market for Nintendo shit is an odd territory. Yes they sold like hot cakes for the first few weeks and was a big news story due to artificial lack of inventory, but analysis is showing that sales have already started to slow quite a bit from the initial wave. Nintendo has it's die hard fans. Switch is a gimmick and will probably be the last console that Nintendo makes before they go the route of Sega and start licensing IP.

When they hit 30 million+ we can continue this conversation, but there hasn't been a whole lot of news past that initial 1.5MM that was obviously pushed by Nintendo marketing staff...

 

[ymer]

The real question is:

Could anyone care about consoles in 2018?

 

[viscountalpha]

The real question is:

Could anyone care about consoles in 2018?

I split myself between consoles and pc. Even though I know I'm getting worse graphics, generally speaking? It fucking works and I don't have to screw with drivers or crashing problems.

It's also a different platform and experience.

 

[Jelly]

If gaming moves to streaming, count me out, I don't have high speed available in my area and i'm not moving just so I can download/stream 4k i'm still content with my ps3, plenty of cheap games to play lol.

 

[MartinX]

"...and a GPU that benefits from five years of improvements to Radeon technology"

So no real difference then?

*rimshot*

I have a really hard time seeing anyone doing a "new" console ever again, or at least for a very long time. Fully bespoke technology is more or less too costly and too risky at this point vs tweaked (or even not tweaked) off the line commodity stuff. It's not necessarily bad though.

 

[Dirty Butler]

4K wasn't that big of an upgrade for me but HDR sure is. I'm glad to see more and more games coming with HDR and am looking forward to Dolby Vision enabled consoles!

 

[ymer]

I split myself between consoles and pc. Even though I know I'm getting worse graphics, generally speaking? It fucking works and I don't have to screw with drivers or crashing problems.

It's also a different platform and experience.

I really can't relate to what you're saying.

Every time I want to play with my Xbox One (which isn't often at all), every fukin thing has to update and it takes literally hours sometimes.

So I finally came out with the brilliant idea of unplugging the ethernet cable from the console, and now I can finally enjoy it like I did when I was a child playing SNES and N64

 

[face2palm]

The baitiest of clickbait. Great post there, megalith

 

[Nytegard]

I remember the days when console releases were a lot more frequent. It may just end up becoming fact that the extremely long life spans that the 360 and PS3 experienced before becoming a last generation console was a mere fluke.

Am I the only one who remembers when Consoles had a 10yr life cycle????

PS5 in 2018? No thanks. PS4 can still churn out top notch titles.

I believe Derfman is correct on console releases were a lot shorter than 10 years.

NES->SNES: 6 years
SNES->N64: 5 years
N64->Game Cube: 5 years
Game Cube->Wii: 5 years
Wii->Wii U: 6 years
Wii U->Switch: 4 years

Master System->Genesis: 3 years
Genesis->Saturn: 5 years
Saturn->Dreamcast: 4 years

And as far as the life cycle continuing into the new generation, yes, but only for a year or two. I mean, yeah, the NES lasted until 1994 in the USA, but none of the games past '93 were major sellers. And the last major SNES game ere Super Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country 3, both in 1996. About the only consoles I can find with a 10 year life span are the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Pretty much every other console (sans handhelds) was about 5-7 years before people moved on.

I think the real issue though is that this generation of consoles just doesn't have any memorable games. The NES & SNES seemed to last forever because they had a ton of good games. What game on the PS4 or Xbox One stands out, and isn't a remake? Off the top of my head, Uncharted 4, Halo 5? Bloodborne only sold about 2.7 million copies so far. Every game that's sold well has been either GTA, Madden, CoD, or FIFA. That's really not that much diversity, especially if you're not a fan of those 4 franchises.

 

[Darunion]

I believe Derfman is correct on console releases were a lot shorter than 10 years.

And as far as the life cycle continuing into the new generation, yes, but only for a year or two. I mean, yeah, the NES lasted until 1994 in the USA, but none of the games past '93 were major sellers. And the last major SNES game ere Super Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country 3, both in 1996. About the only consoles I can find with a 10 year life span are the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Pretty much every other console (sans handhelds) was about 5-7 years before people moved on.

I think the real issue though is that this generation of consoles just doesn't have any memorable games. The NES & SNES seemed to last forever because they had a ton of good games. What game on the PS4 or Xbox One stands out, and isn't a remake? Off the top of my head, Uncharted 4, Halo 5? Bloodborne only sold about 2.7 million copies so far. Every game that's sold well has been either GTA, Madden, CoD, or FIFA. That's really not that much diversity, especially if you're not a fan of those 4 franchises.

I don't personally want long lifespans like 'last generation'. I feel like you are right about the memorable games, also I think perception of time is different as a younger person than it is as we get older. I feel like I remember seeing nintendo 64 hype in magazines very shortly after the snes released. Also I don't think as many people (just my own opinion) were console launch day buyers as they are now. So consoles could feel like they lasted or were around longer.

Yea the halo series comes to mind for xbox, I have a ps4 now as well but haven't messed with uncharted yet, currently working on Last of Us.

 

[Trepidati0n]

Console should be on a four year cycle. That brings it to around $100/year which is a fair price IMO.

 

[Snowdog]

About the only consoles I can find with a 10 year life span are the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Pretty much every other console (sans handhelds) was about 5-7 years before people moved on.
.

PS3-PS4 ~7 years.
XB360 - XB1 ~8 years.

Playstations have averaged about 6 years, so PS5 is due around 2019 and there seems to be no real reason to hurry that up.

Also arguments about new generation vs upgrade are kind of meaningless if consoles move to a 3-4 year cycle and maintain backward compatibility.

There simply won't be huge leaps anymore, just a more continuous upgrade.

 

[Kamber]

Clickbait.

 

[T4rd]

Clickbait.

Yup. PS5 definitely won't come next year. Maybe a PS4 Pro refresh, but that's about it. I'd be pissed too cuz I just got a PS4 Pro, but I traded up from a regular PS4.

 

[DF-1]

I think consoles should do this.

Release a console, promise that one generation back is 100% compatible with the future model.

so PS A gets released, PS B gets released 3 yrs after, PS C gets released 6 years after A, now the minimum/baseline is PS B. PS D is released 9yrs after A, PS C is the minimum.

you get to release a new product every 3 years, people know that theirs will work for at least 6 years. We can keep progressing and not use extremely old hardware.

 

[bulbrook]

Having just upgraded my ps4 to a ps4 pro and playing Horizon Zero Dawn, I can safely say Sony can wait. The graphics are amazing. I have a high-end 4K htpc hooked up to a 75" 4K tv and there is hardly a PC game out now that matches the beauty that this lowly 4.12 teraflop machine is producing. While I prefer gaming on the PC I appreciate what a console offers in terms of simplicity and ease of use. The controller just works, the updates work seamlessly. Sony put out a nice machine in the ps4, and refined it well with the pro. In 2-3 years I hope they come out with a backwards compatible successor. I love that Sony runs a simple OS where I can swap out the hard drive for an SSD with a few screws. The pro is so quiet, has a built in power supply, and just works.