Chinese electronics company TCL has said it expects PlayStation 5 Pro and new Xbox Series X/S consoles to launch in 2023 or 2024.
The company, which reportedly ranked second in the global TV market in terms of sales volume in 2019, revealed its forecast for the console industry on Wednesday during a presentation attended by Polish sitePPE.pl.
During the press event, which was used to showcase TCL’s latest TVs, a company representative said they expect “Gen 9.5” to arrive by 2024.
The manufacturer suggested the unannounced consoles will provide gameplay in 60-120 frames per second at a resolution of 2160p and offer the ability to play in 8K.
It also said it expects PS5 Pro and the newXbox Series X/Sconsoles to come with an equivalent to the upcoming AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT GPU.
Given the platform holders’ current inability to meet demand for PS5 andXboxSeries X due to the global chip shortage, TCL’s forecast for a mid-gen hardware refresh so soon might appear optimistic, unless perhaps redesigned consoles offer a manufacturing advantage.
Piers Harding-Rolls ofAmpere Analysistold VGC he believed the timing was realistic, but that the low availability of current PS5 consoles could push it back.
“I don’t expect this to be based on any specific concrete product knowledge, but it is a sensible estimate of when an updated PS5 might be expected to come to market (3+ years after launch),” the analyst said.
“However, the low availability of PS5 and therefore slower than anticipated adoption of the console is likely to impact these timelines. As such, I think it’d be more likely for a mid-cycle upgrade to come late 2024 at the earliest.”
SonyCFO Hiroki Totoki said last year that the company was considering various solutions to help it cope with theglobal shortage of hardware components, including potentially altering designs or sourcing secondary suppliers.
The topic was brought up again in Sony’s full-year financial results briefing earlier this month. During the event, Totoki was asked what measures Sony is taking to combat semiconductor shortages, whichIntel recently warned will now likely last until 2024.
While Totoki’s response didn’t specifically reference PS5, he said (transcribed by VGC) that “in different areas… we have changed our source of procurement and also changed our design amongst others. So, we have been capable of coping. So, for the parts procurement, I think that we have a good outlook”.
Last May, it was reported thatSony would start production on a PS5 redesign in 2022, which would feature a “new semi-customised” 6nm CPU from AMD.
Taiwanese business websiteDigiTimesclaimed that suppliers including semiconductor foundry TSMC were planning to start producing the redesigned PS5 console between the second and third quarters of this year.
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It also emerged this month thatSony appears to have registered a new PS5 model in Japan.
The company recently received construction design certification for what looks to be a new ‘CFI-1200’ series model featuring updated radio equipment.
A revised PS5 model was also released in 2021, although the redesign was purely components-focused and didn’t feature any significant external changes.
