Sony: PlayStation 5 release planned for late 2020 despite coronavirus

The release of the PlayStation 5 is still on track for the end of the year, Sony says. The Japanese company says it sees the consequences of the travel restrictions for the development of the hardware, but these can be overcome, according to the manufacturer.

This means that the release is planned for the holidays of this year, Sony repeats in the discussion of its annual and quarterly figures. While hardware development has encountered problems due to employees having to work from home and not travel, solutions have now been found.

The coronavirus has no negative impact on the development of games by Sony itself or by third parties, the company said. Sony does not want to say anything about its expectations of console sales. The company has not yet announced a price for the PS5. However, the annual figures show a slide with few detailed expectations; it states that Sony expects a decline in revenue for its games division compared to last year; a fiscal year at Sony runs from the beginning of April to the end of March.

Expectations for other divisions are even lower and Sony expects the electronics division in particular to take a hard hit next year. In that business unit, smartphones and TVs did not go well last year; The turnover of both product groups fell sharply, even before the outbreak of the corona virus.

For the first time in years, Sony earned more from cameras and video cameras than from smartphones last year, according to the figures. The number of smartphones sold was still slightly higher. Last year Sony delivered 3.2 million smartphones; with market leaders Samsung, Apple and Huawei it concerns hundreds of millions of copies. Sony supplied 2.9 million digital cameras.