Sony Says The PS4 Is Heading Into End Of Its Life Cycle & It Could Only Mean One Thing

The PlayStation 4 is still selling very strong all over the world, however, with every generation, a console's sale begins to decline. Sony has been focusing more on digital services and subscriptions available on the PlayStation, the company said during its annual Investor Relations Day. 

The PlayStation business for Sony has always done better than any other business by the Japanese company and has delivered a steady increase in operating income. Ever since the launch of the PlayStation 4, the company has been able to generate a cash flow of $6.31 billion for the 2013-2017 fiscal years.

This week, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO John Kodera revealed that the PS4 is entering the final phase of its life cycle, which basically means there will be a downturn in terms of hardware sales. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki on Twitter.

PS chief Kodera: PS4 is entering final phase of its life cycle, which would have negative impact to the unit, but recurring revenue via membership services etc should cushion some of that.

— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) May 22, 2018

In addition, Kodera also confirmed that the PS4 will be replaced by a successor in the near future which the launch of PlayStation 5 is probably near. However, Kodera told analysts and investors that the PlayStation will look at the next generation of gaming in March 2021. That seems a bit murky as traditionally, PlayStation consoles had a lifecycle of roughly six years and the PlayStation 4 is already in its 5th year this generation. We could expect Sony to announce a new console in 2019/2020 however that remains to be seen.

There's more good news for PlayStation gamers, as Kodera also talked about software. Kodera said that PlayStation will continue to introduce new properties and expand existing IPs such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Knack and others.

PlayStation has been able to dominate the console market this generation with sales exceeding 70 million units and have over 80 million active users on PlayStation Network. It's still hard to say when Sony will talk about the follow-up console to the PS4 but it looks like we won't have to wait much longer.

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