The phrase “five-hundred and ninety-nine US dollars,” continues to rattle the psyches of PlayStation fans fourteen years and nearly two full console generations after it was first uttered by ex-Sony CEO Kaz Hirai at E3 2006. Launching a full year behind the primary competition and at a much higher price point, the PS3 was doomed to a rocky launch, and the console wouldn’t find its footing until the very end of that generation. With all that in mind, rumors of a possible PlayStation 5 launch delay may have Sony repeating the mistakes they made fifteen-odd years ago.

Set to be revealed on the 11th of June 2020 after a brief delay in observance of recent events, Sony is already way behind the game when compared to Microsoft. While the initial reveal of the Xbox Series X and subsequent quote-unquote “gameplay” reveals have been met with criticisms of their own, Microsoft has been much more transparent—and seemingly more confident—than the PlayStation company. With Sony playing things so close to the chest and waiting so long to reveal their new console, many fear this could be an indicator that the PlayStation 5 will either release later or be markedly more expensive than Microsoft’s offering.

In fact, Sony has been so quiet on the matter up until this point that it wasn’t even the first ones to show us first-hand examples of what its new machine will be capable of. About a month ago, Epic Games released a tech demo of their new Unreal 5 Engine and claimed it to be running on next-gen PlayStation hardware. Impressive though it certainly was, it was strange to see footage like this coming from a third-party source. We understand that it was meant to be a showcase of the engine rather than the hardware on which it ran, but, thus far, it’s essentially been our only glimpse at the future of PS gaming, and, barring a hereto unannounced launch delay, we can’t help but wonder why that is.

Furthermore, Microsoft seems to have diligently learned from its multitude of mistakes over the past generation and look to be poised to re-capture the console wars crown in late 2020. Though we can’t know how the two will fare on the market come October or November of this year, Microsoft’s eagerness to embrace cloud streaming technology and to offer consumer-friendly subscription services like Xbox Game Pass seems to prove that, when compared to Sony, it’s far more prepared for the next major era in gaming. With the Xbox brand already boasting an apparent advantage, Sony simply can’t afford to delay its console.

Of course, with all the craziness the first half of 2020 has brought with it, we can’t exactly blame Sony should it make the decision to reschedule the release of the PS5. Manufacturing is a complicated and convoluted process, and, with all of the risks and hazards associated with the COVID-19 outbreak, rigidly sticking to initial plans may not be wise. We speculate that both companies would, at this point, likely prefer to postpone their console debuts. However, unless they reach some sort of agreement, the risk of granting a direct competitor a competition-free period is far too high.

Given what we know about both consoles so far, we seem to be on the verge of a veritable revolution on the video game front. However, the launch window of these systems will almost certainly play a major role in their receptions and sales volumes, particularly early on in their life cycles, and pushing things too far back would likely prove a near-fatal misstep, one which Sony, in particular, shouldn’t be eager to repeat.

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