An insider claims that the PlayStation 5 Pro is getting announced this year, but much later in the year.
As reported by Dexerto, Tom Henderson shared this opinion in relation to rumors of a PlayStation 5 Pro announcement on Twitter:
“It seems like everyone is hyped that the PS5 Pro might be announced at CES. Personally, I’d be surprised if they were to announce a new console 9-10 months from release if that’s the timeline they are still going with. So I’m more inclined to believe a late Q3 announcement.”
CES, or the Consumer Electronics Show, was the inspiration behind the now defunct E3 expositions. Like E3, CES was originally for the industry only, but as technology became more closely associated with pop culture, it would become a public event. This year’s CES is coming this January 10 to 12, 2024, which is just a few days away.
While it would make sense for a big company like Sony to hold such an announcement on a huge show, there’s also a lot of reasons to believe they would not do so – in fact, there’s more reasons to believe the latter.
For one, Sony, which was the first of the three console companies to leave E3, does not need a third party show to announce their new hardware at all. They didn’t need such an occasion to announce the newer, slightly smaller model of the basic PlayStation 5. Making such arrangements could mean Sony having to pay the show organizers, but Sony has enough marketing infrastructure to spread the word on their products just fine.
The other thing is that it’s just far too close to the winter sales season. Sony made their sales in that period, and didn’t announce or release the PlayStation 5 Pro then. While our source notes that third parties already have PlayStation 5 Pro dev kits, that would have no bearing on when they decide to announce the product.
No, Sony does not have to launch the PlayStation 5 Pro as soon as they have the hardware finalized, even not as soon as they have manufactured stock. This would be a strategic marketing decision as well, based on what time of the year would be best so that they could get as many people buying the new console as possible.
If anything, one could say it would be too early to release the PlayStation 5 Pro this year at all, even if it was December 2024. The new smaller PlayStation 5 model is still very fresh in the market, and hasn’t replaced all the older bigger units yet in store shelves. If this model is immediately obsolete, then Sony would have wasted expenditures in making this model. They may as well would have waited to launch the PlayStation 5 Pro before placing that new console on a smaller unit.
In any case, Sony’s hands may be tied to making choices that aren’t always the best, but the best of what they can do at the moment. At a time when gamers are speculating on the feasibility of Sony’s first party titles, we may eventually see those bad choices play out in public in time.
