Wow, this was a surprising poll. There's more people voting for 2021 than 2019.

I think the best possible time to launch would be March 2021. Copy Nintendo's strategy of getting launch sales, and a holiday sales boost all in the same year. But they don't do that. So definitely Winter 2020.

2019 feels like it would be a weak underwhelming system. I want a $500 console in 2020 that pushes the envelope as hard as they possibly can. If I were Sony, I'd stop including a controller in the box, and make PS5 backwards compatible with PS4 controllers. That would squeeze an extra $30 to $50 of the price towards more power. Whether I pick up a PS5 at launch is entirely dependent on the price to power ratio. If you can build a PS5 comparable PC for the price of a PS5, at launch (price of windows, 3TB HDD, and reputable parts brands included), then I'll wait for the price to come down.

i would say 2020, can't see it coming earlier, because of great big games still coming out for ps4

2020 makes the most sense - and there are several signs Sony (and others, like Bethesda) are planning for a 2020 launch.

Firstly, they are on record (though I forget exactly where) as stating they expect to incur losses in the PS division around 2020/21 - suggesting they're aiming for a PS5 launch in the calendar year 2020 and will sell the hardware at a loss, which indicates a powerful piece of hardware. Currently, there's still a wave of Sony published titles lined up for PS4 in 2019 and, interestingly, Sony haven't organised a PlayStation Experience for this year, because they "couldn't live up to previous" years, or something similar - which indicates that, right now, they don't want to make any longer-term announcements because PS5 is the longer-term. Any major new announcements will be PS5 titles at this point, and it's still too early to talk about the system openly.

Sony showed in 2013 - and Nintendo showed in 2016/17 - a short turn around from official announcement to launch can work well. I'd expect a similar announcement - we'll know about PS5 officially probably 9 months before launch, so E3 2019 at the earliest - though a dedicated event in early 2020 followed by a late 2020 launch is also feasible.

I think those votes are based more on hope than reason. Your controller idea is interesting.

More like whatever games are revealed for the PS5 in 2020 will likely be cross generational titles. I would even go as far as say that on the exclusives front sny may even release first on the PS5 thne do a PS4 port like 6 months later.

Anyway......... 2020.

Yh 80M+ people probbly agree with you.

Sorry if I´m mistaking you for someone else, but if I remember correctly, you used to be one of the fiercest Xbox supporters on this site, and hated Sony for 'being responsible' for killing the Dreamcast and Sega as a hardware maker....what was the defining factor in your decision to go to Playstation?

Probably because he saw that The Last Of Us and Detroit Become Human are top 10 !!! 8-)

Well at least for me lol.

I agree with the vast majority here that think it will come out in 2020. The software lineup, and Sony's words and actions in general all seem to point to this. With that said, I can also see 2021 as a possibility. I see absolutely no chance that it launches in 2019. We'd have heard more rumors and leaks by this point if that was the case. It also doesn't make sense, as PS4 is still dominating, and Sony has no reason to want to move on to the next generation. In fact, they'd probably like to ride the current generation for a few more years, if they thought MS would also wait.

Of course, MS is just biding time until they can move on. I expect they will have something big in the next generation that they hope will bring some piece of the PS user base back into XB. That will probably either be a significantly lower price than PS for similar specs, or much higher specs for a similar price. Considering the talk about a family of devices, they may do both of those. MS has tremendously deep pockets that can afford to lose a bunch of money on each unit sold, if they think it will bring people into the family. With their heavy focus on GAAS (which seems to be working our reasonably well so far), I can imagine they're doing the math constantly, trying to figure out just how much each console owner is worth in the long run, so that they can determine how big of a loss on console sales is acceptable.

I expect that MS will also launch in 2020, though I see a small chance that they launch devices in both 2019 and 2020 or 2021, so that they can get first mover advantage, and power advantage a year or two later.

Then again, I'm just pulling this all out of my ass.

Here's my prediction when it comes to PlayStation through 2021 (I'll leave out some of the smaller games and details):
2019: Day's Gone, Dreams, The Last of Us Part II
2020 (PS4): Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part II standalone DLC
2020 (PS5): PS5 reveal event in Q1; $399, Horizon 2 and Gran Turismo Open World as launch games in October/November, full Backwards Compatibility with the biggest PS4 games getting PS5 enhanced patches. Cross-gen games will not exist, instead games launching on PS4 in late 2020 will just get a significant PS5 enhanced patch
2021: God of War 2, Spider-man 2, Horizon Zero Dawn 2 DLC