A recent report suggested that Sony Interactive Entertainment has continued its production ofPlayStation 4’s into 2022 despite having plans to discontinue the piece of gaming hardware at the end of 2021,a report that Sony has now denied. As the current generation of consoles recently celebrated their first birthdays, fans expected production to start coming winding down on last-gen hardware, but PS4’s are going to stay in production for a while as Sony had initially planned.
In an interview with NLAB first reported by Yahoo, a Sony spokesperson said that “there was no plan to end the production of PS4’s at the end of last year,” a direct contradiction to the Bloomberg report that broke earlier this month. Ending the production ofPlayStation 4consoles in 2021 is a move that many would seem to understand given the global shortage of graphics chips that continues to impact technology production, but given Sony’s history of console support years after new ones launch, it would be a little out of character to stop the creation of consoles so quickly after next-gen ones are made available.
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Some believe that Sony’s continued PS4 support is being done to help combat the console shortages that have plagued the industry since the start of the pandemic. With how fastthe PlayStation 5 is flying off the shelves, some gaming fans might settle for a PS4, but, as it turns out, those aren’t staying in stock either as a result of the increased demand for gaming hardware.
As noted above, there’s plenty of precedent for Sony to continue making PS4 consoles well after the start of a new console generation. For reference, the PS3, a console that launched in 2006, was finally discontinued in 2017 andthe PS2 lasted even longer: from 2000 to 2013. Based on that, it would appear that the PS4 might still have a few years in it as it won’t be turning 10 years old until late 2023.
Given that Sony’s current lineup of announced titles coming later in 2022 will be available on both PS4 and PS5, it makes sense that it would want to keep supporting fans of its titles by making its cheaper and potentially more accessible hardware on the market. So far,Horizon Forbidden West,Gran Turismo 7, andGod of War: Ragnarokwill all be getting cross-generational releasesand it appears as if Sony might continue that trend for several of its other titles while the supply of PS5 consoles is still short.
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