New consoles are a major investment. When you drop anywhere between $300 and $600 on a new gaming system, you can at least rest easy knowing that you’re going to be sitting pretty in the gaming world for a long time.
That might be changing.
Industry reports have hinted that Sony‘s long-term plans for the PlayStation estimates a shorter life cycle for the PlayStation 5, which is the period of time in which the console is considered top of the line and games are actively being developed for it.
According to Sony’s backend supply chain in Taiwan, the life cycle of the PlayStation 5 will be just over five years. This is markedly shorter than the six to seven years seen in previous consoles such as the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4.
Despite this, Sony is moving forward on a very aggressive shipping plan, expecting 120 million units to move over the next half decade.
To put that in perspective, that’s twice the number of units that rival Microsoft is planning to ship for their upcoming Xbox Series X console.
Some are even estimating that Sony has plans to ship more than 170 million PlayStation 5 units. This is especially ambitious, seeing how the PlayStation 4’s total sales over seven years has been 110 million.
So, the question becomes, what is Sony banking on here? Moving potentially 60 million more consoles over a shorter period of time seems like a bold and daring move. But perhaps there’s something in the cards over at Sony HQ that we don’t know about yet.
Sony is planning to release a number of exclusive titles for the PlayStation 5. Most notably, Spider-Man: Miles Morales will be released alongside the console. This addition to Spider-Man on the PlayStation 4 will see Miles Morales dawn the iconic costume and swing through the streets of New York.
We got out first look at that game, being developed by Spider-Man developer Insomniac, in June of 2020 during the PlayStation 5 reveal.
It is also assumed by just about everyone that news about a fifth God of War game will be dropping anytime now. After Sony’s most recent God of War title for the PlayStation 4 was one of the console’s most popular titles, it seems like a no brainer for the PlayStation 5.
Despite that, we have still received no word on the existence of a God of War sequel.
With Sony setting high expectations for a console with such a reportedly short lifespan, it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of future the PlayStation 5 will have within the gaming world when it releases this holiday season.