This is probably not the news you want to hear but respected business publication Bloomberg are reporting that there will be a limited amount of PlayStation 5 consoles available to consumers when it launches at the end of this year. The reduced supply is not due to the current Covid-19 pandemic but rather, according to Bloomberg, that Sony “expects the PS5’s ambitious specs to weigh on demand by leading to a high price at launch.”
Bloomberg do report that promotion for the console has been scaled back due to the pandemic so that explains why it’s mid way through April and we still don’t know full details of the PS5.
According to sources, Sony expect to make “5 to 6 million units of the PS5 in the fiscal year ending March 2021”, so that’s quite a few consoles but less than the 7.5 million PlayStation 4 consoles that were sold during the same period of the PS4 launch. They also say developers making games for the console “anticipate its price to be in the region of $499 to $549”.
We do know that the majority of PS4 titles will be playable on the PlayStation 5, Sony released the following statement.
UPDATE: A quick update on backward compatibility – With all of the amazing games in PS4’s catalog, we’ve devoted significant efforts to enable our fans to play their favorites on PS5. We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5.
We’re expecting backward compatible titles will run at a boosted frequency on PS5 so that they can benefit from higher or more stable frame rates and potentially higher resolutions. We’re currently evaluating games on a title-by-title basis to spot any issues that need adjustment from the original software developers.
In his presentation, Mark Cerny provided a snapshot into the Top 100 most-played PS4 titles, demonstrating how well our backward compatibility efforts are going. We have already tested hundreds of titles and are preparing to test thousands more as we move toward launch. We will provide updates on backward compatibility, along with much more PS5 news, in the months ahead. Stay tuned!
The PS5 controller, the DualSense, has also been revealed, you can read more about that here.
Source: Bloomberg
Andrewww
My main question is not about the price, which is a difference of only very few games I’ll just not buy on day one. It’s whether the console will be white.
Andrewww
Oh, and, whether it’s flat so that I can stack the PS3 on top of it (like I currently do with the PS4).
Stefan L
It’ll have a concave bottom moulded perfectly to sit on top of the PS3 Slim.
Andrewww
Perfect, with that feature I’ll buy it on day one..! :-)
ron_mcphatty
£450-500 is expensive but not the biggest surprise, but that premium price after a tough year for a lot of consumers might harm sales badly. God know how Sony are expected to deal with that though!
camdaz
£450 to 500 is expensive for a console but you can pay a lot more than that for a discrete graphics card and a heck of a lot more for a PC capable of PS5/XSX level of performance.
TSBonyman
People spend twice that on mobile phones on an annual basis , granted probably mostly on contract but still i think it’s not an unreasonable price for a modern console, especially given the move to SSD (proprietary SSD even) and the backwards compatibility and VR integration. The value might become more apparent once they reveal the full list of features.