The next PlayStation won't arrive until May 2020 at the earliest

• Sony's next PlayStation console is deep in development, but it still has a long way to go until it's available to buy.
• The next PlayStation console, widely expected to be named PlayStation 5, won't arrive until May 2020 at the earliest.
• That's according to Sony, which told reporters that it won't release its next-gen game console any time in the next 12 months.
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Sony's next PlayStation is deep in production, but that doesn't mean it's on the verge of launching.

Quite the opposite in fact: Sony says that it's next PlayStation game console won't arrive until at least May 2020.Advertisement

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The news comes out of Sony's annual financial release, which outlined the Japanese electronics giant's coming year - and, notably, doesn't include the launch of the next PlayStation console.

The console hasn't been officially named, but it is widely believed to be be named "PlayStation 5" given historic precedent - PlayStations 1 through 4 say hello.

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Sony did reveal a variety of details about the console in a recent interview with Wired.

Among the details:

1. The next PlayStation has a new central processing unit and a graphics processing unit from AMD. The former is based on AMD's Ryzen line, while the latter is part of Radeon's Navi GPU line.
2. It contains a solid state drive instead of a hard disc drive, intended to dramatically decrease loading times for games.
3. It supports PlayStation 4 games as well as PlayStation 5, and is also compatible with PlayStation VR headsets.
4. It's capable of powering 8K visuals and producing "Ray Tracing" effects - the long way of saying, "games will look better than ever."

And now, one more detail we know: It won't arrive until at least May 2020. Applying past precedent here as well, it's likely Sony won't launch the PlayStation 5 until holiday 2020 - but that remains to be seen.Advertisement

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