THE PS5 release date could have one major feature to set it apart from it rivals - Microsoft’s Xbox One X and the Nintendo Switch - do they have a plan of their own?
While Sony have confirmed that a PS5 release date will happen, they are not ready to reveal when it will fall.
The latest reports from leading analysts provides a mixed picture, with some expecting news before others.
Some believe that an announcement could be made by Sony in 2018, although this would mean hurting PS4 and PS4 Pro sales.
Others believe that will be waiting until 2020, with Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter explaining why he thinks next year will be too early.
This boils down to the PS4 range of consoles doing so and so wanting to get as much out of it as possible.
Speaking on The 1099 Podcast, Pachter revealed that he thought Sony would extend their market dominance with the PS4 Pro, which wouldn’t likely subside until 2020.
"Sony is making so much money with the PS4 that I think they'll continue to milk it as long as they can milk it,” Pachter explained.
“And I think the natural extension of that is the PS4 Pro becomes the default PS4, and they just knock that price down to $250 when they can and they keep selling it -- a ton of those.
“The PS5 is probably going to be their real 4K device, and so it just feels to me that they're not going to launch the PS5 until sales momentum for the PS4 slows, and it just hasn't.
“So you certainly get through 2017, 2018, and I just don't see it slowing in 2018 which should prop them to launch something in 2019. If it slows in 2019, they're probably launching in 2020."
And when it does eventually launch, it’s going to have feature that is currently only available on the PlayStation range of consoles.
In June, it was confirmed that more than 1 million PlayStation VR headsets had been sold by Sony.
President and CEO, Shawn Layden, has said that he believes sales will steadily pick up this year due to the increased availability and stock levels.
So far, the Xbox One X and Nintendo Switch do not have access to Virtual Reality games, although this could change in the future.
Microsoft have their own mixed reality project moving forward, which is currently centered around the Windows platform.
The Xbox Scorpio was said to support "high-fidelity" virtual reality when it was announced at E3 2016, although not much has been heard about it since.
Sony, meanwhile, has just given their PlayStation VR headset a major update.
The giant announced this month that they have a hardware upgrade planned for PS4 gamers who use the PlayStation VR.
This new PSVR model has been confirmed for North America and will offer a range of new tweaks to improve quality of use.
This includes features such as enabling the stereo headphone cables to be integrated with the VR headset and a slimmer, streamlined connection cable.
There’s also an updated Processor Unit that supports HDR pass through, meaning users will be able to enjoy HDR-compatible PS4 content on a TV without having to disconnect the Processor Unit in between the TV and the PS4 system.
However, Sony warns that this function can be used only when the VR headset is turned off.
Model number CUH-ZVR2 has not been announced for Europe, so it's unclear if this version will be available in the UK anytime soon.
Microsoft’s Xbox Marketing Manager, Albert Penello, was recently asked about VR on Xbox One X, hinting that more could be revealed next year.
"We’ll talk about VR when that happens," Pinello replied when asked by TechRadar, "For us, we’re focussed this year on the X launch. There’s already so much we’re asking developers to do.
"We’ve said that we’re building for VR. Obviously Microsoft as a company is super invested in VR. For Xbox this year, it’s just not what we’re talking about. There’s always new things to talk about in the future.”
And while it seems unlikely that the Nintendo Switch will support VR, dataminers recently discovered references to VR code support.
This doesn’t mean anything substantial, only that Nintendo could be leaving the door open for something, just in case.
There have also been several patents that have appeared in the past few years that point to potential VR experiments going on at Nintendo.