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PS5 Release Date Never Happening? Why The PlayStation 4K Is The Console We Should Have Seen In 2013

By David Cornell
Published on: 04:59 PST, Apr 29, 2016

The PS5 release date is probably not going to happen. You probably read that in the voice of Mean Girls star Rachel McAdams, but according to Sony, the PlayStation 5 is the least likely console we’ll ever see.

Instead, the PS5 release date is probably not going to come simply because Sony is planning to give the PS4 what should have been included at launch.

For reference, let’s take a quick trip back to 2013, when the PS4 and the Xbox One were first released. Sony and Microsoft had announced them like they were the proverbial endgame, but in spite of all of the hype, neither was really a major improvement over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. They both did basically the same things while offering almost nothing to really make the new consoles the dramatic improvements gaming veterans have come to expect from new consoles.

In the 80s and 90s, we saw the release of consoles that were always vast improvements in hardware and capability. The Genesis was a much more marketable machine than the Master System, and Nintendo always made drastic changes to each new console and controller.

Let’s ignore the Virtual Boy in that case, since it was a perfect example of how to do everything wrong. It was a “portable” console that required a table of some kind to even use, and the screen was a headache-inducing display of red on black. It was a first-party mistake that will probably make Nintendo wary of trying virtual reality again.

Yes, I’m saying that before I even know what the Nintendo NX will be capable of.

Instead of a PS5 release date, Sony is simply upgrading the PlayStation 4 with 4K display capabilities and support for the VR headset. This could potentially mean that the latest console will be able to deliver a crisp display without pixelized edges on a 65-inch HDTV and without a significant drop in the frame rate.

The problem is that we were promised almost the same thing when the PlayStation 4 was released in 2013. With sharper visuals and more on the screen, it was supposed to be a significant upgrade from the PS3. Instead, we were given what I will affectionately call the PlayStation 3.5. Yes, the PS4 is technically six times as powerful, but the games have yet to prove it to us. We still get frame rate drops when the game has too much going on and the GPU and memory can’t handle it.

To be fair, I’ll say the same thing about the Xbox One. It wasn’t that big of an improvement over the Xbox 360, so now Microsoft is allegedly working on something that is. There likely won’t be an Xbox Two or PS5 release date just because Sony and Microsoft are finally offering us what should have been in our current consoles already.

The VR headset is one part of what might convince the consumer that the PS4K is worth the upgrade, even though for now it could be just as much a gimmick as the Xbox One Kinect. Parents who really think about it are probably far less likely to buy the virtual reality device for their kids. If they think the kids are antisocial and irresponsible now, wait until they literally can’t hear or see the real world while they’re playing the latest releases.

For those few who have been holding out before putting money down, the lack of a PS5 release date might be good news. We will finally have the consoles Sony and Microsoft should have offered us back in 2013, and late-comers won’t have wasted their money on the first batch.

What do you think about the PS5 release date being nixed in favor of an upgraded PlayStation 4?

[Image via Akirbs/Shutterstock.com]

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