Sony's PlayStation 5 release date teasing gets more specific

Just last week, Sony shared the first official details about the PlayStation 5. Even though that's a sure sign the next generation is on the way, Sony didn't mention anything about the PS5's release date or pricing. The company – or more specifically Mark Cerny, who was the lead architect on the PS4 and the PS Vita – simply said that the console won't be on shelves in 2019.

Beyond that, Sony didn't get more specific, but today we're getting a better idea of when the PS5 might launch. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Takashi Mochizuki on Twitter, Sony has been telling press that the PlayStation 5 won't be launching at any point in the next 12 months. That rules out an early 2020 release for the console, but it does suggest that it'll be here before the calendar rolls over into 2021.

For quite some time now, rumors and reports have pegged 2020 as the year that both the PlayStation 5 and the next Xbox will appear. Microsoft has yet to announce any official details on its next-gen Xbox (or Xboxes, as Phil Spencer suggested there are multiple consoles in development during his keynote at E3 2018), but we're expecting to hear more about the console at E3 2019 in June. Sony, on the other hand, is sitting E3 out this year, so the details Cerny shared about the PS5 last week are likely the only ones we'll get for a while.

Without getting too specific, Cerny painted a picture of a surprisingly powerful console when he sat down with Wired to talk about the PlayStation 5. He claims that the console will support ray tracing and that it'll be capable of running games in 8K. He also said that the PS5 will use a custom AMD CPU based on third-gen Ryzen processors and will use an SSD for storage instead of a more typical hard drive.

The fact that Sony doesn't anticipate launching the PlayStation 5 within the next 12 months suggests that the company is considering a fall 2020 release date for the console. That would get the PlayStation 5 on shelves before the ever-important holiday shopping season, but of course, we're still too far out to make a confident call on when the console will release. In the end, we're left waiting on Sony for more specifics, so stay tuned for those.