Some new PS5 hardware has been teased by Hideaki Nishino, a Sony Senior VP of Platform Experience, in an interview. From what we can decipher, it may release or be announced near the end of Fiscal Year 2023, which concludes in September 2023. This new hardware could well be the new PS5 console with the detachable hard drive, first reported in September 2022 by known insider Tom Henderson.
New PS5 hardware tease coincides with prior ‘PS5 Slim’ report
Nishino shared future plans for the PS5 platform, prompted by an observation that the PS4 Pro was released about three years after the PS4 released, in an interview with Famitsu magazine. He said:
By the end of fiscal 2022, cumulative sales will exceed 37 million units, and we believe that it will be a very important time for the platform as well. I won’t be able to talk about specifics at this time, but I hope you will look forward to next year (2023).
We believe that he means by the end of fiscal 2023, since FY 2022 is already over. From this quote alone, the safest bet is that something significant about the PS5 will be revealed in 2023.
That said, the reportedly slimmer PS5 model with a detachable hard drive also has a release window of September 2023, which is when FY 2023 ends. Another leak in November also suggests that the “PS5 Slim” release date would be Q3 2023. It’s unclear how this supposedly new PS5 will be named by Sony, whether it’s a PS5 ‘Slim’ or ‘Pro’ (or something else entirely). But at least it looks like these pieces of information are converging to a similar point.
