A video games expert has said if a PS5 Pro is to launch in 2024, "it needs to be out in November".
A mid-generation update for the PS5 has been rumoured for a while now, with speculation ramping up after Sony attended the Tokyo Gameshow in September for the first time in four years. Insiders claim the console will be revealed in the third quarter of the 2024 Fiscal Year and chips for the console have reportedly been shipped.
But to make the most of its release, George Osborn said Sony needs to release the console in November in order to maximise sales.
Osborn is the creator of Video Games Industry Memo and the managing director of Half-Space Consulting with 15 years' experience in the industry having also studied at the University of Cambridge.
"The PS5 Pro is reportedly going to be announced at Tokyo Gameshow in September, the first time Sony will have been along in a very long time," he said.
"I think there's this real sense of if they're going to be unveiling it there, they're going to have to look to have titles to support it when it actually rolls out.
"The problem I would have would be ideally, you want a new console, in the best possible scenario, before Christmas with a good chunky run up to it.
"When you look at purchasing intent around games consoles, it obviously peaks in the run-up to Christmas but one thing I've learned from my experience is it needs to be out in November.
"That's because if people are going to be making a big purchasing decision like that for their Christmas presents, they're going to buy it then and not in December.
"In December, people start to think about affording everything else.
"Unless they've got something up their sleeve, it's hard to know what their timeline and approach to it is at the moment."
Osborn said the wait might have something to do with GTA 6 releasing later in 2025 than Sony may have anticipated.
He said: "I would expect there to be something unexpected, some sort of surprise there, but I think the real problem at the moment is they're clearly waning towards the end of this console generation.
"Last year they aimed to sell 25 million PS5 consoles and missed that target by around 20 per cent and if you look at the most recent quarter, when you look at the number of PS5 consoles sold, it's down by around a million year-on-year.
"There is this sense they're starting to wind down towards the end of this generation and a PS5 Pro is the final, last hurrah but I have a sense maybe they were expecting GTA 6 to be launching a little bit earlier.
"It would make a lot of sense for them to have a PS5 Pro with GTA rather than having to launch a PS5 Pro now and then you have to wait a year for the GTA option.
"I think there's a question going on at PlayStation in response to what's going on at Xbox, what's been going on at Nintendo to go 'if the console market is starting to become less viable as just one place to live, how do you expand elsewhere?'
" Helldivers 2 was a great success where they helped publish that on PS5 and PC and got a much better return on that game than expected."
Expanding on that, Osborn thinks Sony may be looking at what its rivals Microsoft are doing with Xbox and how they're prioritising its Game Pass and being available on multiple platforms ahead of console sales.
"I think Microsoft's approach with Game Pass and their [Sony's] own with PS Plus is something they're having a real think about," he said.
"Until the price increase happened for Game Pass Ultimate, PS Plus was more expensive than Game Pass was and, frankly, the service just isn't as good.
"I think there's more caution at PlayStation about operating a subscription model, I think it's one of those where as a business, it's more historically rooted in 'we sell consoles, we sell accessories for the consoles and we sell games'.
"Shifting over to a subscription model, they've been a little bit uncomfortable about it, especially in making sure the really prestige, premier games are on there.
"However, I think as they begin to think about being more cross-platform, like the PS Portal letting you have a portable PS5 to some degree, I think Sony is starting to think about what that world looks like for them and if they need to do more of that kind of thing."
When asked about the potential for a PS6 being announced soon, Osborn said Microsoft again offers more of a hint of what the future generation of consoles might look like.
He said: "While Microsoft is saying 'it's not about consoles, we're not thinking about those kind of things', they had their unfortunate leak last year when they were in the middle of the court case for the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
"In there was a clear plan for 2028 for a hybrid console where it will have the familiarity of a console but it will have a lot of cloud computing capabilities with it to essentially allow it to run a bit more efficiently.
"I would assume Sony are aiming for the same window.
"In terms of what that means, there will probably be into 2025, 2026, maybe even 2027, some big games lined up for those windows but also at this point, if you're starting to change course and change strategy and think about what comes next with a console generation, this is the point with game development when things start to get real.
"If it's four years away, they really have to start understanding what's going be made and how.
" Starfield took the best part of a decade and if you look at how long GTA 6 has been in development for, again very difficult to know precise details, but you've got to be assuming at least around or prior to Red Dead Redemption 2 [which released in 2018] as that timeline.
"They probably are starting to warm up to a new thing but there's probably a broader question about what that will look like and how it will manifest itself in the future."
Osborn's Video Games Industry Memo is sent out every Thursday and he's writing his debut non-fiction book called Power Play , a look at how video games are changing the world.
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