Sony has recently announced that the PlayStation 4, the console that was released in 2013, is nearing the end of its life cycle. Some fans of the console were upset with the news but it is not all that surprising considering the console is almost 5 years old already, which means that most of the technology in the device is quite outdated.
If you thought this meant that a new PlayStation console will be out soon though, you’re out of luck. Sony has confirmed to the Wall Street Journal
Tsuyoshi Kodera, the new CEO of Sony, has further stated that they are going to do research in the next 3 years on how to more efficiently combine consoles and networks. As of right now a large part of Sony’s revenues come from their online subscription services, which offer a more reliable income than the sale of hardware, thus combining the two makes sense. They are also looking to incorporate mobility into the console, much like the Nintendo Switch has done. However, Kodera states that they don’t want to limit that mobility to a single device, he says they need to think broader than that, since everything is connected to the internet nowadays.
With no new PlayStation console for at least the next three years the PlayStation 4 life cycle is one of the longer ones we will see. Most companies release a new console within six to seven years since the previous one, but Sony is looking at at least eight years, potentially even nine. We can also be quite sure that we will not hear anything on the device for quite some time. They have already said that for E3 we won’t be getting any new hardware updates, instead their focus is going to be on 4 big games that they will release for the device in the future.
