Sony Claims That the PS5 has Entered ‘The Latter Stage of its Life Cycle’

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Sony Senior Vice President Naomi Matsuoka stated that the PlayStation 5 was entering the ‘latter’ stages of its lifecycle after just over three years on the market. This announcement comes after what Sony considers disappointing sales from last year- with the gaming giant reducing the console sales target down to 21 million from 25 million in the upcoming financial year as a result. Despite selling an impressive 54.7 million units in three years, Sony aren’t satisfied with the console’s progress and are turning some of their attention towards the inevitable PS6.

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If the console truly has entered the second half of its life cycle already, this should mean that we could see a new console from Sony as early as 2026, which seems like a short amount of time but makes more sense when you consider that the average gap between generations appears to be around seven years- which was the case between the PS4 and 5, as well as the Xbox One and Series consoles. Still, though, it seems quite early to be speaking about a successor to the PlayStation 5, especially since its release is still so recent in the minds of most gamers.

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This announcement may have also arisen due to a lot of fans’ disappointment about the lack of impact from this generation. Whilst there have been big exclusives such as God of War: Ragnarök and Spider-Man 2 on the console, there is much more of a focus on third parties, which have been putting out far more original and well-regarded titles in the past three years. To put this into perspective, the big winners from the Game Awards in the past three years have almost always gone to third parties. Although there certainly are releases, they are much more spaced out and less universally praised compared to the previous generation.

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With Sony also confirming that it will not release any major franchise exclusive titles until 2025 at the earliest, 2024 is set to be an even slower year for PlayStation. This news may therefore seem like Sony is giving up on the current generation in hopes that the PS6 will perform better. With at least three more years of life left in it though, hopefully we can see more impactful releases before the PlayStation 5 passes the torch over in 2026 or 2027.