The PlayStation 5 will be Sony’s next console and will have a hard act to follow.
The PS4 and PS4 Pro have proven massive hits for the company, who now have one of the best selling consoles of all time.
Estimates suggest that the PS4 will continue to sell well in 2019, even if the PlayStation 5 is announced.
And there are a few other ways Sony could boost the sales of the PS4 before the launch of the PlayStation 5.
According to one analyst, The PS4 could see a price cut alongside Microsoft’s Xbox One in 2019.
Industry expert Michael Pachter has backed all three major hardware makers to provide some kind of price cut in 2019.
Pachter has already predicted that the PS5 and Xbox Two will be released in 2020.
Talking to Gamingbolt, Pachter revealed his prediction on price reductions, adding: “I think we’ll probably get a price cut on all of them.
“And Nintendo may position it as a reinvented Switch. My guess is that Nintendo will take the Switch and get rid of the “Switch” part, so it’ll be handheld only.
“They’ll probably just make the Joycons part of the integrated body of the tablet, and probably drop the price. Get rid of the docking station, and the external power supply- just turn the thing into a handheld that’s rechargeable with a power cord, you know, like a normal handheld, and charge $200 for it.”
“So they do that, Sony can probably cut the price, Microsoft probably will cut the price,” he explained.
“You’ll probably get a $199 Xbox and a $249 PlayStation, and a $199 Switch that’s handheld only, and that’ll probably be enough to drive unit demand to keep it constant year-over-year.”
There are also reports this week that suggest Sony are odds on favourites to include backwards compatibility in their PS4 release.
Rumours of such a feature have been doing the rounds for years and is something that fans would love to see.
But does it really fit with the picture that Sony has already started to shape?
Backwards Compatibility on Xbox One has proven hugely popular and has even led to old games being sold again to a wider market.
It’s a way of distinguishing the Xbox One away from the PS4, which offers the PlayStation Now streaming service as a kind of alternative.
Patents have also been found that were filed by Sony that seems to suggest they’re working on some kind of Backwards compatible support.
And respected NPD analyst, Mat Piscatella, also believes it’s a big possibility for the PS5 release date.
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“I’d be surprised if the PS5 were not backwards compatible with PS4 content, and Sony already has a streaming solution in market with PlayStation Now,” Piscatella told GamingBolt.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if both PlayStation 5 and the next Xbox took this type of approach, although I’m sure they’d do so in slightly different ways with different messaging.”
But if Backwards Compatibility is confirmed for the PlayStation 5, wouldn’t that mean a drop in sales for the PS4?
As soon as you find out that the next console will be able to play current games, wouldn’t it remove the incentive?
So perhaps the idea of a PS4 price cut and a PS5 BC announcement would work well together.
It should be noted that both of these scenarios have been predicted by analysts and have not been confirmed by Sony PlayStation.
But if either does happen, you can expect it to be well-received news from PS4 gamers.
There’s currently no one theory on when the PS5 will be announced and released, although many analysts believe it will launch in 2020.
Some believe that Sony will delay the PS5, instead, looking to 2021 as the best date for a generational push.
[“source=express.co.uk”]
