Following up on recent statements by Sony CFO Lin Tao that the company is “only in the middle of the journey” when it comes to the current console generation, PlayStation senior vice president of marketing, sales and business operations Eric Lempel has similarly noted that the PS5 still has plenty more to offer. In an interview with BBC News, Lempel said that there is still “a lot of great content”, and that Sony is “just going to continue with PS5.”
When it comes to what exactly the PS5 has left to offer, Lempel was quite coy, noting that “we’re really hitting our stride now.” He also said that there is a game that will come out and ultimately become the biggest-selling release on the console. When it comes to specifics, he said: “I’m not going to tell you which one, but I think it’s still to come.”
While Lempel wasn’t willing to go into specifics, he was likely referring to either Marvel’s Wolverine, which is slated for launch in Fall 2026, or Rockstar Games’ upcoming opus Grand Theft Auto 6, which will be coming out on November 19, 2026. As for why the life of each generation of consoles has grown so much longer than the 5-year cycle we used to have in the 1990s and 2000s, game streaming service Antstream Arcade’s boss, Steve Cottam, believes it’s because game’s take much longer to develop now.
“Back in the 80s and 90s, each console brought huge jumps in power and capability relative to what came before,” said Cottam to BBC News. “Today, improvements are still happening, but they’re more technical and less immediately striking to the average player.”
The Game Business’s Christopher Dring also similarly brought up how much longer game development cycles have become. Pointing to one of Sony’s biggest first-party developers – Naughty Dog – Dring spoke about how the studio used to release games at a much quicker pace in the past.
“During the PS3 generation, Naughty Dog released four games,” he said. “During the PS4 generation, that dropped to three games – so far during the PS5 generation, it’s not released one.”
Lempel believes that there are also other factors at play when it comes to the longevity of console generations, namely that there is now an audience that is more open to trying out newer things like smaller-scale games rather than just AAA releases.
“We’re seeing on average people are playing 50% more games than they did last generation, and they’re really branching out to different types of games,” said Lempel. “They’ll play the hits, but they’ll also play smaller games or unique games that they’ve never heard of before.”
Tao had spoken about Sony just being in the middle of its journey with the PS5 during an earnings call earlier this month. She also noted that the company isn’t yet ready to discuss the future of PlayStation for now.
“The PS5 is only in the middle of the journey,” said Tao. “We are really planning to expand it even further. As for the year-end sales season, and thinking about the customer lifetime value, and also thinking about the profitability, we want to promote so that we will expand the install base.”
