Analyst predicts 2020 release of PS5, says PS4 Pro to become standard PS4

If you're familiar with the game industry, then you're probably familiar with Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter's predictions. A quick round up of Pachter's predictions are as follows.

Pachter has estimated that the Xbox One X will not do well in sales, that the PlayStation 5 will release in 2019 (even though Sony said it would be "some time" before we saw that). Before that, he said that the Xbox One and PS4 would be the last 'real' console cycle, which was essentially an echo of his previous statement.

More recently, Pachter claimed Nintendo would reveal a new Metroid during E3 (he was right), a PS4 price drop and that the Xbox One X would be $399 (wrong).

With that out of the way, we can talk about his latest prediction. When asked when we'd see the PS5 during an interview with 1099 Podcast (Episode 108 at 47min), Pachter replied that we will probably start seeing the PS5 in 2019 or 2020, but if he had to bet it would be the latter.

"If I had to bet I'd say 2020. Sony is making so much money on PS4 that I think that they'll continue to make as long as they can milk it. I think that the natural extension of that is that the PS4 Pro just becomes the default PS4 and they just knock that price down to $250 if they can.

"PS5 is probably going to be their real 4K device, it feels to me like they are not going to launch the PS5 until sales momentum for the PS4 slows and it just hasn't yet. Certainly get through 2017 and 2018, I just don't see it slowing in 2018 which would prompt them to release something in 2019. If it slows in 2019 then they will probably launch it in 2020.

"You can very safely trade in your Xbox One and buy and Xbox One X and start saving $10 a month, you'll have some time before you need to trade it in for a PS5."

This pretty much explains his thought behind the 2019 – 2020 release estimate for the PS5, but doesn't include the rumor that an even slimmer PS4 is on the way. Perhaps that extra slim PS4 will be the push that keeps people buying the PS4 until 2020.