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Although Sony launched a 4K HDR-enabled console at the end of 2016, in the shape of the PlayStation 4 Pro, it is thought to be a stop gap until an all-new generation of machine is unveiled. Indeed, even before the PS4 Pro hit the streets a PlayStation 5 has been rumoured.

Now we’re into 2018, the speculation has ramped up. There is a new E3 videogames trade show coming in June and that means rumours of new hardware are bound to appear.

That’s why we’re rounding many of them up right here, including the possibility of seeing the PS5 this year. We also throw our own thoughts into the mix.

Bar specifications and capabilities, the thing that most gamers want to know about the PS5 is when it will launch.

There is nothing official on this, naturally, although current thinking is that it could be available from as early as next year, 2019.

Renowned industry analyst, Michael Pachter, games and electronics specialist for Wedbush Securities and host of YouTube series Pachter Factor, told The 1099 podcast that he believes the PlayStation 5 will be launched in 2020, but that it could come a year earlier.

“I think that’s about exactly when you’ll see one – 2019 or 2020 – and if I had to bet, I’d say 2020,” he said.

“Sony’s making so much money on PS4 that they’ll continue to make it as long as they can milk it. I think the natural extension of that is that the PS4 Pro becomes the natural default PS4.

“The PS5 is probably going to be their real 4K device and it feels, to me, that they’re not going to launch the PS5 until sales momentum slows.”

There are other trains of thought, however, that, with the release of the Xbox One X – dubbed “the world’s most powerful console” – Sony might bring its next machine forward. And that could mean a tease or initial unveiling of the PS5 at E3 2018 with an actual release a year later. It’s the same tactic used by Microsoft with the One X, which was talked about during E3 2016 and then more formally revealed and then released in 2017.

We’ve heard from our own industry sources that an E3 2018 unveiling is possible but very much unconfirmed.

As yet, there are few rumours out there about the technology Sony will adopt for its next console.

There haven’t been any reports about development kits, for example. They tend to pop up closer to release and can often reveal a few decent nuggets.

Instead, we’ll have to make do with a few things that we can take educated guesses on. For a start, the PlayStation 5 will be a full 4K HDR console, with beefy enough processing to present full 4K native gaming at 60fps without the need for checkerboard upscaling.

We’ll also be flabbergasted if it doesn’t come with a 4K Blu-ray player at the very least. During the unveiling of the PS4 Pro in 2016, SIE’s executive president of its hardware engineering department, Masayasu Ito, told us that the omission of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray deck was down to cost and that 4K video streaming was more important to the console’s target audience. However, Microsoft includes one in its Xbox One S and One X rivals, while maintaining a reasonable price point – certainly for the former. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is rapidly becoming one of the biggest players in the 4K Blu-ray market and it just doesn’t make sense that the parent company’s biggest-selling entertainment device doesn’t support its own discs. It is also almost a certainty that the PS5 will have a larger hard drive – of 2TB or greater. As the resolution of games gets higher, so do their file sizes. There are 4K games on the Xbox One X, for example, that weigh-in at over 100GB. Considering system software takes up space too, you can’t even fit 10 such games on a 1TB drive. Yes, you can add an external USB 3.0 drive for extra storage these days, or swap out the internal HDD, but providing adequate space to begin with is a must. Considering we don’t have many of the actual details yet, there’s no way we can even speculate on a price at this stage. We doubt it’d be anything shy of $450 though – the price of the Xbox One X on its release. We’ll update this feature with new rumours and/or confirmed details as and when they occur.