Sony Says PlayStation 5 AMD-Infused Gaming Console Is At Least A Year Away

Sony and other game console makers are normally very coy with information about their next generation hardware. Sony is surprisingly forthcoming with details on the unreleased PlayStation 5 game console, having confirmed already that the machine will have an AMD Zen 2-based processor and Navi-based Radeon GPU. Sony has also said that the price will be appealing given the hardware inside. Naturally, it's reported that Microsoft's next-gen Xbox will be even more advanced.

Gamers who have been hoping that the PS5 might get official and be available to purchase this year may not want to hear this. Sony has shed a bit of light on its launch plans for the PS5 during a recent earnings call. In that call, Sony stated that it had seen an increase in development expenses for the PS5.

On that call, Sony also stated that no next-generation PlayStation would launch within the next 12 months, which suggests that it will be at least May 2020 before the PS5 lands. Considering that console makers prefer to launch their consoles around the holiday season, a likely target for launch would be late Q3 to Q4 2020. No details on when the next-gen Xbox might land have surfaced at this time, but we could hear more from Microsoft at E3 2019 as the company has been very vocal about its attendance.

As for why Sony is being more upfront about the PS5 than it has about any consoles in the past, speculation suggests it's to get ahead of leaks early and give up details to thwart potential leaks down the road. That hasn't kept leaks from showing an alleged PS5 dev console late last month. That console was certainly ugly but bear in mind that it's only the hardware inside that devs care about not the way the console looks.