Sony might be keeping a tight lid on its PS5 reveal plans, but that hasn’t stopped reputable games journalists with anonymous sources from reporting on the company’s plans. VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb previously reported that Sony was planning some kind of PS5 event for June 4th, 2020, later saying that the scope of the event would hold an “entire slate of games.” Grubb has now amended that report, saying that his sources tell him there have been some changes. According to his most recent report, the June 4th date is being moved (though still planned for early June) and the games lineup “might not be quite as hefty as it was before.”
In what he’s calling “Jeff Grubb’s Summer Game Mess,” (a play on Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest), Grubb is attempting to track and make sense of the entire messy season of announcements and reveals that is like E3 week exploded and rained messy little bits down on the calendar from May through August. This includes updating people on what he knows of each first-party company’s plans, and regarding our particular interest here at PlayStation LifeStyle, the reveal of the PlayStation 5.
PS5 Reveal Event Date Delayed
“First is a Sony event in early June. The company was originally planning this for June 4, but it is moving it around. The exact date is more nebulous now,” Grubb says in his VentureBeat report. “That doesn’t mean it’s slipping by a matter of weeks, though. The early June timeframe is still the company’s current plan.”
June 4th is a Thursday. If we consider that perhaps plans have shifted by a week, that would put the event somewhere around June 11th, or possibly earlier that week if Grubb’s report is accurate. My personal money is on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday—most companies don’t’ want to bury their news on Fridays or Mondays unless its bad news—but that’s purely speculation on my part.
Regardless, the changing date, for whatever reasons it is changing, may have also caused some problems with the lineup of games planned for Sony’s event. Once supposed to have a “hefty” slate of games both first- and third-party to show off, Grubb reports some “complications” with regards to the date shift. Specifically, he says that while it will remain significant, it may not be quite as hefty as once envisioned. Some third-party developers and publishers may have broken off to do their own things instead of partnering with Sony on the PS5 reveal event.
With regards to me characterizing the early June PlayStation 5 thing as a “hefty next-gen event” and with “a lot” of games. I still think it should be significant, but it might not be quite as hefty as it was before.
— Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) May 18, 2020
Grubb says he doesn’t know if the June event is when Sony will actually show off the physical console itself, though looking back at the PS4 reveal timeline, June 2013’s E3 conference was when Sony unveiled the look, price, and release date all at the same time, as well as opening up for preorders. There is reportedly an August State of Play being planned with both current and next-gen games, and Grubb expects Sony to have more or less fully unveiled the PS5 by that time if the June event doesn’t contain all the details. And as Sony does, continue to expect PlayStation Blog and social media reveals and announcements.
It may seem a bit odd to get a delay and a scope shift on an event we don’t even publicly know about yet, but 2020 is an unprecedented year for marketing plans and projections given the COVID-19 pandemic—even more so considering companies are trying to rewrite the entire roadmap for a new console release.
Grubb’s reports line up with others that have alleged an early-to-mid June PS5 reveal event (Jason Schreier said that in the age of COVID, “nothing is definitive until two days before”) and given it’s already May 18th with no word from Sony, it’s pretty safe to start hedging your bets on next month. Again, this would line up with the PS4’s reveal timeline, with broader details, goals, and features announced before a full console unveiling took place in June of that year. Unless there’s a massive shift (or these reports are just plain wrong), we’re probably less than a month away from knowing a lot more about the PS5 and finally seeing actual PS5 gameplay that’s not just a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5. Until we get official word some Sony, however, best to take everything with a grain of salt.
