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Playstation 4 in final stages of Life Cycle


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According to Sony leadership as reported here and elsewhere:

 

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/ps4-is-in-final-stage-of-life-cycle-playstation-boss-1855579

 

https://www.greenmangaming.com/newsroom/2018/05/22/sony-ceo-admits-playstation-4-is-nearing-end-of-its-life-cycle/

 

Interesting considering the console has been on the market for only 5 years.

 

I thought with the PS4 Pro the PS4 has a long life ahead of it, another 5 years at least!

Edited by travistouchdown
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I thought with the PS4 Pro the PS4 has a long life ahead of it, another 5 years at least!

 

You read the links you posted, right?

 

That being said, don't expect the PS5 until 2021.

 

I guess the "final stages" are the best stages. Retirement, the kids move out, lots of time at last ...

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According to Sony leadership as reported here and elsewhere:

 

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/ps4-is-in-final-stage-of-life-cycle-playstation-boss-1855579

 

https://www.greenmangaming.com/newsroom/2018/05/22/sony-ceo-admits-playstation-4-is-nearing-end-of-its-life-cycle/

 

Interesting considering the console has been on the market for only 5 years.

 

I thought with the PS4 Pro the PS4 has a long life ahead of it, another 5 years at least!

The average console generation is 5-6 years long

 

Ya I would have thought this to be the PS4's prime not it's end. :(

If Sony thinks they are getting another $500 out of me this soon

they can forget it.

They said ENTERING final stages, it still has a few good years in front of it, the PS5 has not been formally announced yet.

 

There are still major games coming for PS4: Spider-Man, Ghosts of Tsusuma (or whatever it is called), Death Stranding, Dreams, Last of Us 2, Days Gone. Maybe more will be unveiled at E3.

 

Also I owned PS4 during its first year, the PS3 still got more games than the PS4 during that time. So the PS4 won't die the day the PS5 drops either.

 

So don't worry, the PS4 will be good for another 3 years minimum

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Yeah, this is a tempest in a teapot. First of all, it was a translated comment - we don't know what was originally said or how accurate the translation is. But even if it's 100% dead on accurate, "entering the final phase" is both kind of meaningless to consumers (this was a call for investors) and also totally logical. It's been on the market for almost five years. Its sales have plateaued. This is the natural cycle for any game console, even successful ones, and it's now an aging system that's going to start coasting a bit. But it could coast for a long time.

 

The PS2 was released six years after the PS1, and the PS3 five years after the PS2. The PS3-PS4 was the longest interval at more than seven years. In all those cases, the previous system continued being sold for years in some reduced but fully functional form factor.

 

That said, I also think it's probably likely that the comments about 2021 were misinterpreted/mistranslated as well. I don't see anywhere that he said the PS5 wouldn't be coming until 2021. What he seemed to be saying is that they're going to have to work hard to keep the PS4 viable until 2021. That in no way even implies that the PS5 won't be on the market already by that time. Sony's business model relies on propping up their new systems with sales of the older, more profitable system, until the new system can stand on its own. So if anything, I take those comments about 2021 as saying the PS4 is going to need to prop up the PS5 until that time. Which would imply to me something more like a 2019 or early 2020 release date for the PS5.

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I'm not sure why so many people are surprised. We've hit the average life expectancy of a console generation, yet we are still a ways off from a PS5. I think is most people sat down and looked at the release years for each PlayStation generation, they might be surprised how little time passes between each generation. Also, don't forget that even is the PS5 was released today, the PS4 would still be around and supported for a few more years at the minimum. There was nothing in that article that should have surprised anyone.

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This is basically non-news, Sony had been saying for a while now PS4 sales of both standard and Pro models were expected to slow and start to decline from here on in.

 

The PS VR system hadn't been the huge success Sony had perhaps hoped for etc.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-05-23-sony-vr-market-growth-below-expectations

 

Sony really hit the ground running this generation, MS had assumed PS4 would have faster Ram, but only 4G at best, the whole 1080P vs 900P farce worked in Sony's favour..

 

PS4 sales have been phenomenonal, coming on the back of nay sayers saying the console market was dying out, future lay with PC and mobile gaming.

 

It will be very interesting to see what tactics they take with the PS5.

Edited by Lost Dragon
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I think this comment was targeted toward investors (it was an investor call), rather than a consumer-facing comment. From a business perspective, I think Sony probably is considering the PS4 in its last stages. Those stages being a slow decline in sales in the coming years, continued software support, and ramping up development and marketing for the PS5, possibly for release in 2020 or 2021. Assuming the PS4 lives a few years beyond that, as is typical for last gen consoles in terms of software releases to an established market, the PS4 will easily have an 8-10 year life cycle in total.

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I think this comment was targeted toward investors (it was an investor call), rather than a consumer-facing comment. From a business perspective, I think Sony probably is considering the PS4 in its last stages. Those stages being a slow decline in sales in the coming years, continued software support, and ramping up development and marketing for the PS5, possibly for release in 2020 or 2021. Assuming the PS4 lives a few years beyond that, as is typical for last gen consoles in terms of software releases to an established market, the PS4 will easily have an 8-10 year life cycle in total.

 

It really does seem like that, as the announcement was just 1 of many made..see the slow growth of VR annoucement as well...

 

Sony were basically laying out a road map as to where they saw future revenue coming from and warned investers not to expect the same level of returns from PS4 sales as had been experienced.

 

Games media took it and ran a night follows day, type story.

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I'm a fan of the old time 4-6 years cycle, it is just the right amount of time for the console to make its mark and withdraw before it becomes obsolete performance-wise. I'd rather have that than the weird Pro/X "upgrade" style we saw introduced this gen.

 

I like the excitement of the new launch, all the hype, expectations, speculation and fresh start (also blunders :) Since I never buy at launch anyway I'm not bothered about the $$$ factor, besides this is a natural modern tech upgrade cycle with pretty much everything - you buy, then after a few years sell (at hopefully half price) and buy a new thing.

 

The only worrying thing about PS5 will be of course the will they - won't they speculation regarding the online-only angle. I hope they won't.

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According to Sony leadership as reported here and elsewhere:

 

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/ps4-is-in-final-stage-of-life-cycle-playstation-boss-1855579

 

https://www.greenmangaming.com/newsroom/2018/05/22/sony-ceo-admits-playstation-4-is-nearing-end-of-its-life-cycle/

 

Interesting considering the console has been on the market for only 5 years.

 

I thought with the PS4 Pro the PS4 has a long life ahead of it, another 5 years at least!

 

I'm sure the PS4 and Pro have at least 5 years of life left in it either way. Even if Sony has an actual release of a PS5 in 3 years time (That might just be the official announcement of the next console for all we know) in all likelihood we'll continue to see new games come out on the PS4 for several years after any PS5 release. The same way the PS2 and PS3 hung on.

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Of course.. Also ran a number of "Death of VR"

stories

Over the years they have reported Nintendo would no longer be launching the N64 (then Ultra 64) as it was too expensive to make..

 

MS getting out of console buisness...pick an era...

 

E.A dropping support for Sony with PS3...

 

Death of the PC as a games machine due to rise of the Super Console..

 

Death of the Super Console market due to rise of PC..

 

Death of Super Console and PC due to Mobile gaming...

 

Now VR which they had once said was long dead and buried, is about to die and be buried..

 

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Well, yeah. This gen is nearly five years old now. I expect it's got a few years left in it, there's not even a next gen announced yet.

 

In past years, a generation was roughly 5 years, but so little advancements are coming now that they are lasting a lot longer.

 

That's cool though, many of the best games come from mid to end of a consoles life anyways.

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  • 3 weeks later...

If what has been said is true, in that the devs have started taking delivery of dev kits for PS5, then you'd expect an absolute minimum of 2 years left in the PS4, as it tends to take that long to make a game these days. Certainly the sort of games Sony will want as launch titles to sell their new console. So I'd say the PS4 will have an easy 8 years of life, which seems about right.

 

Personally I think it's too soon. I think they killed the PS3 too soon when you consider how hard the console was being pushed and the quality of games coming out at the end of it's life (GTAV and Last of Us). There was easily more life left in the thing. Same will go for the PS4. But Sony are a console maker, so when everyone has a console, people are not giving them as much money. Much like the mobile phone market, newer faster consoles will come along with a nice side of enforced obsolescence built in if you want to play the latest games. We certainly don't need a PS5... But everyone will want one when it comes out, and the cycle begins again. FWIW, I don't own a smart phone ;)

Edited by juansolo
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