PlayStation 5

After the PlayStation 4 launched, lead architect Mark Cerny began visiting Sony's first-party studios every two years to hear their concerns about the hardware. Those visits set the main goal for the new system: shorter loading times. Several developers, including Epic Games' Tim Sweeney, told him that hard drive speed had become a limit on game design. Cerny first described the console in an interview with Wired in April 2019, and the full specifications were published on March 18, 2020.

Sony revealed the console's exterior on June 11, 2020, and confirmed price and date on September 16. It launched on November 12, 2020, in Japan, North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, and a week later in most other markets. Two versions arrived together: one with an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive and a Digital Edition without one. The global chip shortage kept supply tight until 2023. Reviewers praised the DualSense controller, the interface and the SSD speed, while the console's size divided opinion.

Every console comes with Astro's Playroom preinstalled, a game built to show off the DualSense. Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon's Souls were part of the launch line-up, and Sony presented Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart as a game not possible on older hardware. According to Sony, the PS5 runs more than 99% of the PS4 library. In May 2021 Sony decided to release Gran Turismo 7 and God of War Ragnarök on PS4 as well. The PlayStation VR2 headset followed in February 2023.

The console is still on sale. In November 2023 the models known as the Slim replaced the originals, and on November 7, 2024, the PS5 Pro arrived with a faster GPU and PSSR upscaling. Sony raised prices in 2022, 2025 and 2026. In July 2026 it announced that it would stop producing physical PlayStation game discs from January 2028. The move drew backlash and legal challenges from consumers, retailers and studios, and Sony later said it would handle the transition cautiously.