Summary
Sony’s making some concerning statements about thePlayStation 5, casting a light on the industry’s generational cycle as a whole. The news that thePS5might be nearing the end of its life is devastating for a console generation that still feels like it has barely started.
Sony recently slashed its PS5 sales forecastfor the 2023 fiscal year (which will end in March 2024) from 25 million to 21 million. This was due to the console’s declining sales, something Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki attributed to the machine being in the ‘latter half’ of its life. Given the relative unity between Microsoft and Sony in regard to generational release schedules, this could mean the ninth generation is ending sooner than most thought—possibly as early as 2026.
Despite having a farbetter 2023 than the Xbox Series X/S, the PS5 is already looking toward retirement. If Sony’s already looking to throw out the PS5, then Microsoft’s unlikely to be far behind given the latter’s lead. It’s very early for the ninth generation to already be looking toward its end, and that’s a bad omen for the industry. With the shortening of a generation that barely feels like it’s gotten started, players may be facing an expensive future.
Console Generations Keep Getting Shorter
Microsoft and Sony have been settingthe console generation standard in recent years, with Nintendo off in its own world after ditching the Wii U for the Switch—not to mention how the Switch still uses seventh-gen components. Generation seven consoles lasted a whopping 11 years before discontinuation, from 2006-2017. Generation eight started in 2012 and still has its older consoles going strong, while ninth generation consoles took to the stage in 2020 and have been running for just over three years. Even if ninth generation consoles continue after their new counterparts are released, which they likely will, it’ll only have been a 6 year timespan if the current year is a ‘latter half’.
This is strange considering how many thought that thePS5 and Xbox Series X/S would spawn a longergeneration, especially given the supply issues at the beginning of their tenure. With how incredible graphics have gotten on modern hardware, paywalling software behind another new console will likely be seen as a particularly egregious bout of penny-pinching. Calculating with inflation in mind, the PS5 was about $50 more expensive on its launch compared to the PS4’s on its drop. This makes sense for the better hardware, but consumers definitely won’t be ready for a charge in the ballpark of $600 so soon.
Pandemic Shortages Slowed Down This Generation’s Start
On that subject, the ninth generation really got off to a rough start. It began in 2020, at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic.Microsoft and Sony’s consoles were hit by shortagesin a big way, with chip shortages accelerated by COVID-19 leading to a hugely limited supply. In addition, an epidemic of scalping reduced supply and drove up prices even more. Therefore, many players simply stayed in the eighth generation—something that still continues, with numerous games remaining available for hardware now a decade old.
The PS5 shortages only really ended in 2023, with the three years beforehand being filled with difficulties for those wishing to get one. As well as this, only now are games available for eighth-gen devices being scarcely released. These factors combined have made the generation seem relatively young to many gamers, so talk of a tenth generation so soon seems to be jumping the gun somewhat. While the next generation is still, at a minimum, a good few years out, there’s a chance that if it comes too early there will still be many players who haven’t moved on from eighth-gen consoles. That’s without mentioning the difficulty in getting those invested in ninth-gen machines onboard.
PS5
Sony’s PlayStation 5 is part of the ninth console generation and debuted with a launch lineup that included Demon’s Souls and Astro’s Playroom. The console comes with a Blu-ray disc, although a digital-only edition is also available for a cheaper price.
