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Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation 5 will launch in November, setting up a holiday season battle with rival Xbox Series X console as the gaming industry thrives during the pandemic.
The competing consoles will launch two days apart before the holiday rush, both with the aim of capitalizing on a rare bright spot in the economic carnage caused by the coronavirus crisis.
In addition to a $ 500 premium version of the PS5, a $ 400 “digital edition” without a disk drive has also been designed to take advantage of the growing popularity of downloading games from the cloud.
Both will go on sale from November 12 in Australia, North America, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan and South Korea, and will be available elsewhere a week later, the Japanese firm said on September 16.
Microsoft announced last week that its next-gen Xbox Series X will launch on November 10.
The estimated starting price is roughly the same as the full PS5, while a scaled-down console, the Xbox Series S, will also go on sale for $ 299 later that month.
The PS4 has outsold the Xbox One by more than two to one, and Sony hopes new games like “Final Fantasy XVI,” “Hogwarts Legacy” and “Spider-Man Morales” will help it stay ahead.
Some of the new games will be exclusive to the PS5, giving Sony a huge advantage in the battle, said Amir Anvarzadeh, a strategist at Asymmetric Advisors in Singapore.
“PS5 is going to have a big advantage, as always, because in Europe PlayStation dominates, Xbox is always far behind,” he told AFP. “But for PS5 games to sell, you need the hardware to sell.”
In announcing its new console, a dark tower surrounded by white sides, Sony bragged about the machine’s capabilities.
“We can’t wait for our fans to experience the incredible speed, the most immersion and the awesome games for themselves,” said Interactive Entertainment Chief Jim Ryan.
Gaming companies have seen revenue surge and an explosion in demand as people seek to distract themselves during virus crashes.
According to the NPD Group, consumer spending on video games in the United States hit a record $ 11.6 billion in the April-June quarter, nearly a third more than in the same period last year.
Sony’s sales in its video game sector increased 32.5 percent in the first fiscal quarter of 2020-21.
And Microsoft said in July that revenue had increased 13 percent to $ 38 billion, led by strong gains in its cloud computing and Xbox gaming services.
But Anvarzadeh cautioned that recent highs, including Nintendo’s smash hit with “Animal Crossing,” won’t last.
“Nintendo is going to have (the equivalent of) three Christmas quarters in a year, which is unheard of,” he said. “The pandemic caused a huge market distortion that we do not believe will be repeated. So all these developers and platform owners are going to face big challenges next year, at least from a growth point of view.
© 2020 AFP
