It is predicted that the Sony PlayStation 5 will be arriving earlier than it was expected by the second half of next year.
The original PS was launched in the month of December 1994 and it has seen four iterations since then.
Sony PS Series
After the original launch in 1994, the second PlayStation 2 came six years after and the PS3 was launched some six years later. The Sony PlayStation 4 was launched after seven years. Sony had brought in the latest version of its gaming console some months back, with the PS4 Pro.
Earlier than Usual
Damien Thong, the analyst at Macquarie Capital Securities, had earlier predicted the launch dates of the PS4 Slim and the PS4 Pro very accurately. According to Damien Thong, the Sony PlayStation 5 will be coming in the second part of the coming year 2018. This will be after a period of five years after the release of the PS4, which is surely sooner than the expected six or seven years of earlier releases.
Few Details
There is not much known about the details regarding the new Sony PlayStation 5, other than the prediction about the release time. However, there are plenty of speculations about the basic architecture behind the gaming console.
As far as the Sony PlayStation 4 is concerned, it has a customized AMD, built x86, multi core chipset and this is combined with the AMD GPU. The technology leveraged by the processor is the same as that used in desktops.
Safe Predictions
Sony would probably like to have compatibility with the PS4 titles, but it can be safely speculated that the Sony PlayStation 5 will come with a processor that is more powerful than the one on the PS4. It is also safe to assume that the GPU will be faster and the Sony PS5 will come with a better memory and improved storage.
Same Architecture
It can also be safely assumed that Sony will continue to stick with the architecture see on the PS4. However, it is also possible that the Sony PS5 will come with customized processors, though not likely. The Sony PlayStation 4 is very successful and it might be too expensive for the company to develop and create its own chipsets for the next generation PS5 platform. It might be more daunting, as the next generation of consoles, the PS5, will have to face growing competition from mobile phones and devices as well as set top boxes that are cheaper and can run mobile games on them. It makes sense to stick to the present architecture, as backward compatibility can be maintained more easily.
Easy Upgrades
This is because the current set of consoles can always be upgraded. All it needs to add to the latest gen consoles will be faster chipsets and graphic cards, more memory and storage. The new Sony PlayStation 5 will then be able to tackle a higher resolution, such as 4K and continue to maintain a smooth frame rate.
Sony has not confirmed any of these speculations and this could be because the Sony PS4 Pro is still comparatively new in the market and is an extremely successful gaming console.
Grant Hamersma knows the world of tech inside and out, covering smartphones, gadgets and applications. One of our in-house writers and top contributors on the site, you can read all 3,700+ of his posts here.