Sony Computer Entertainment is hinting that the next-generation PlayStation 5 may or may not exist as a physical console and could even be a cloud-based gaming platform.
Masayasu Ito, the company's executive vice president, shared his thoughts on the PS5 with the online edition of the Japanese publication Nikkei. He revealed that the PS5 could change its form, but the next-gen of games for the device would propel the medium forward.
"I think there will be a PS5. However, I don't know what form it'll have. It could be a physical console, or it could be in the cloud. But even if the form might change, PS5 Games will be born. This is what we want," Ito told Nikkei.
The EVP may not be sure what form the gaming console would take, but he hinted that the PS5 could be a physical console or a cloud-based platform sans the physical processor system.
Referring to the recent hacking of Sony Pictures, Ito disclosed that he was of two minds about using the cloud-based platform for the PS5, weighing it against the option of building a physical gaming console, which has been the norm.
Ito agrees that with the console functioning on a cloud-based system, plenty of hardware issues that hold the company back could be eliminated. However, if all the data were in the cloud and a cyber attack occurred, then the company would have a major problem in their hands.
Rumors also suggest that the PS5 and the next-gen Xbox from Microsoft will both be futuristic, and with physical media slowly becoming irrelevant, the PS5 could ship sans a disc drive and may be APU drive. The PS5 is also speculated to handle 4K video easily.
Earlier in December, Devinder Kumar, AMD's senior vice president and chief financial officer, said that the next-gen PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles may release sooner than expected. The release date of the PS5 is, however, unknown at this juncture.
Sony is said to be focusing more on its video game platform. The company will apparently cut down on its existing smartphone and TV units to channel its attention to PlayStation projects such as the virtual-reality headset Morpheus.
Project Morpheus is still in development but it is poised to break new ground both in the world of gaming and beyond.
