Summary

• Sony confirms PlayStation 5 is entering the latter half of its life cycle as its sales pace is expected to decline from April 2024.
• The PS5's full potential has yet to be experienced by players, with recent current-gen exclusive games starting to properly showcase the console's selling points.
• Launch difficulties and cross-gen releases meant many players got a PS5 years after its launch, so this may be too soon for a PlayStation 6 feel worthwhile.

Sony has confirmed that the mid-generation model was released in November 2023 with upgraded storage and a modular design that allowed players to add an Ultra HD Blu-Ray Disc Drive to digital-only versions of the console at a later date.

UPDATE: 2024/02/15 09:12 EST BY GARRETT ETTINGER

Original Article Has Been Corrected

According to Sony's Q3 2023 earnings report, the PlayStation 5 will be entering the latter "half" of its console cycle, not the latter "stage," which Bloomberg originally reported. The PS5 was launched in 2020.

As the average duration of a console generation is about 6 years, this refresh made sense three years after the console's original launch. In an interview with Bloomberg, Sony senior vice president Naomi Matsuoka stated that “looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter stage of its life cycle” as the company expects the sales pace of the PS5 hardware "will start falling from the next fiscal year" which begins April 2024 and runs until the end of March 2025.

Players Have Yet To Experience The PS5's Full Potential

Recent Current-Gen Only Games Have Just Begun To Fully Utilize Some Of The Console's Selling Points

The PlayStation 5, along with the Xbox Series X had a difficult launch, both releasing during the COVID-19 pandemic and having online-only launches as a result. This led to a combination of manufacturing constraints reducing the number of consoles being made, and scalpers using bots to quickly purchase many that did go on sale with the intent of reselling them at incredibly inflated price points. Therefore, many gamers didn't acquire a current-gen console until some time into the console generation when these issues were overcome.

​​​​​​While there were titles such as the Demon's Souls remake that launched alongside the PS5 as a current-gen exclusive, others that were marketed as huge selling points for the then new-gen device, such as Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales also received PS4 releases, and the cross-gen releases continued for years with other major PlayStation exclusives such as God of War: Ragnarök. It's only been in recent years that players have begun to experience more of what the PS5's hardware can do, with PS5 exclusive titles such as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 using the SSD to overhaul how fast travel can work in an open-world game, practically removing loading screens entirely and enabling players to travel to any point on the map without the need for specific waypoints.

Therefore, while Sony is most likely looking forward to the PlayStation 6, it hasn't showcased much of what its current-gen console can do, and would need the next console to be a significant improvement to encourage those who already bought a PlayStation 5 to upgrade. As for when the PlayStation 6 could launch, this could be around 2026 based on Sony's latest comments and its calculations for the mid-generation refresh, suggesting that the company is looking at a 6-year run for the PlayStation 5, one year less than that of the PS4, which launched in 2013, 7 years before the PS5 — though at this point it is totally speculative.

Source: Sony, Bloomberg