Without question, the PlayStation 4 (or PS4 as it’s known to its friends) has been a phenomenally successful console to date.
Actually, Sony’s world-conquering games machine has sold almost 80 million units to this day, as many as the PS3 did during its lifetime, and is still going strong.
However, it seems even good things don’t last forever, and Sony itself has acknowledged that the PS4, which first hit shelves in late 2013, could now be reaching the end of its lifecycle. So said PlayStation chief John Kodera, Sony’s new PlayStation chief, in a recent corporate meeting (via GameSpot).
This doesn’t mean Sony does not expect the PS4 to sell many more units from these point onwards, though. Actually, the Japanese company expects to shift 16 million PS4s this year (not a bad figure by anyone’s standards), meaning their latest console still has a shot at beating the good old PS2 and become Sony’s top-selling console ever. For that though, Sony would need to sell plenty more PS4s, as the PS2 is the best-selling console of all time with more than 155 million units sold during its lifetime.
And given Sony’s admission that the almost 5 year old PS4’s lifecycle is coming to an end, this likely leaves many gamers thinking when we can expect the PlayStation 5 or PS5 to hit shelves, and what kind of hardware could be inside the new machine.
One of Sony’s top programmers at its Advanced Technology Group might have inadvertently dropped a clue about this, as was recently reported on Eurogamer. According to the gaming website, the Sony techie is currently working with an AMD Ryzen processor.
This means it’s very likely that AMD’s Ryzen will be at the heart of Sony’s new console, something that makes sense taking into account that the PS4 sports an 8-core Jaguar processor from AMD, and it’s likely for this partnership between Sony and AMD to carry on in the future.
Also, taking into account AMD recently released Ryzen processors with powerful integrated graphics, it’s likely a similar hardware solution will find its way to Sony’s upcoming console.
Of course, the PS5 could still be a long way off, even if recent rumours did place its launch date sometime in 2018, something that’s unlikely taking into account how well the PS4 is still selling.
And while Sony’s devs might be currently working with AMD’s Ryzen, there’s no guarantee this is actually related to the PS5, so we still have to wait for any official word from Sony as to the console’s specs and possible release date.
For the time being though, it’s clear that the Japanese company can bask in the success of the PlayStation 4, already one of the best consoles of all time (which is getting some phenomenal games this year too), while hopefully Sony will drop a word about its future console plans sooner rather than later. Either way, stay tuned to this website for further information regarding the PlayStation 5 in the weeks and months to come.
PS4 Slim (Sony)