Next PlayStation Is Three Years Off, Sony Says (wsj.com)

Don't hold your breath for the fifth-generation PlayStation. From a report: Sony wants to spend three more years readying its next videogame move [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], the head of the PlayStation business said Wednesday. That would mark a slight slowdown in the six-to-seven-year update cycle for the console since the first one in 1994. The PlayStation 4 went on sale in 2013 and has sold more than 79 million units. [...] Speaking to a small group of reporters, Tsuyoshi "John" Kodera, who took over last October. said the network-services side of PlayStation is changing the way Sony thinks about product introductions. "We need to depart from the traditional way of looking at the console life cycle," he said. "We're no longer in a time when you can think just about the console or just about the network like they're two different things."

Comments

Upgrade Fatigue

[sqorbit]

I am okay with longer release cycles. iPhone upgrades that feel like they come on before I even knew about the last one, other mobile phone providers constantly releasing new models. Previously we were bombarded by hardware upgrades for PCs (that has slowed too). Software upgrades, TV Upgrades. It seems for awhile there consumers were just bombarded with upgrades. I think a slower upgrade cycle is better all around. It will hopefully lead to more stable products and as a consumer feeling like you get more from your investment and are willing to spend again.

Re:Upgrade Fatigue

[olsmeister]

It's not really a good comparison. It's easy to skip a revision or three in the mobile phone upgrade cycle. With game consoles, if you want to play the new games, you kind of have to have the new console. But I don't want my current one to die before the next one is available, as that would leave me with a bad choice of throwing money away on a replacement current gen console for use until the next gen ones come out, or going without.

Re:Upgrade Fatigue

[OrangeTide]

if you want to play the new games, you kind of have to have the new console.

What if everyone kept their game consoles for 10 years and kept buying games for them? Would game studios still produce new games? I think yes, if there was money in it for studios and if the console licenses permitted it.

The upgrade cycle is intentional and very artificial. It doesn't represent consumer demand but it is organized by marketing. In exchange we get new whizbang graphics, better physics, more realism and ultimately better immersion.

But if you play games because you like the mechanics or you like the stories they tell. Then more powerful hardware isn't strictly necessary. For games that don't need beefy hardware I think we'll see more and more market share going to mobile games as long as nobody gets sick of the manipulative quasi-gambling freemium model that plagues the current mobile industry.

Re:Upgrade Fatigue

[bigman2003]

I respectfully disagree.

I was a huge Xbox 360 fan. I played a lot of games, but there were parts of the console that really bothered me. Mostly load times. Stopped playing for about 4 years.

I finally got an Xbox One about a year ago. My favorite 'feature' is that I can be playing a game, and power the console off....next time I turn it on, I can go right back into the game, exactly where I was. I can do the same when going between games. In the middle of a game, click 'Home' and go into a different game...then when I go back, I am right where I left off.

It makes games a lot less stressful. I can enjoy them more. I don't worry about save points as much.

Right now I am playing Sunset Overdrive and being able to pop-in for a 20 minute little gaming session...yet saving my progress...is really nice. I am thrilled I don't need to wait 4 minutes just for everything to load, then take 10 minutes to get back where I left off. It's there in about 10 seconds as though I never left.

For me as a busy person that is a huge factor.

how does ANYONE benefit from a PS5?

[micahraleigh]

Graphics look the same between PS3 and PS4. What is another order of magnitude of cores going to do?

Since Sony probably loses money on each console sold (and I lose money on each unnecessary console I buy) how does this benefit anybody ??

Re:how does ANYONE benefit from a PS5?

[DontBeAMoran]

No, this is another case of "a better product is nearly indistinguishable from the old so nobody's buying the new one".

The people will stop at 4K TVs, a lot of us have even stopped at 1080p. Hell, I stream Netflix in 720p on my 1080p and it's good enough for me.