Sony to surprise the world with PS5

We already know that Sony is working on an upgraded version of the PS4 designed to play the same library with souped-up graphics, but the basic PS4 may be getting something of a redesign as well. A report from the Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki suggests that Sony is working on a PS4 “slim” similar to what the company did with the PS3 back in 2009. We’ve heard whispers of this before, and a slim redesign is a pretty reasonable thing to be doing at this point in a console’s lifespan. Chief competitor Microsoft just announced its slim version of the Xbox One at E3, for example. Just to clarify: it appears that analysts are saying that the slim is in addition to the Neo, meaning two new consoles.
The Xbox One had quite a bit of space to lose, however. I’m curious to see just how much Sony can squeeze out of the already impressively compact PS4. There’s been no official announcement yet, as Sony decided to excise any mention of hardware from its much-lauded E3 press conference. I’d be surprised if Sony didn’t head into holiday 2016 with some sort of new hardware besides PSVR, and so the best bet for an announcement is either at some sort of stand-alone event or at the Tokyo Game Show, and the report suggests the latter.
Sony Interactive Entertainment head Andrew House recently talked a bit about a culture of “instant gratification” in the electronics industry, largely spurred by Apple’s “available now” press conferences. To me, that suggests as short a time as possible between the announcement of the PS4 Neo/Slim and their release, which TGS would fit nicely into. Announce in September, give pre-orders a moment, and then release in October. That would put the PS4 slim in direct competition with the Xbox One S, and odds favor the PS4 in that fight.
It’s a bit of a nebulous fall at the moment, but an exciting one nonetheless. We’ll keep you posted as more things develop.