PS5 games are the focus for Sony's first-party developers, analyst says
They're apparently starting to use PlayStation 5 development kits.
Sony's first-party developers could be looking to the next generation of PlayStation.
Sony's first-party game developers may have turned their attention to the next generation, an analyst said.
The Japanese company's in-house developers have switched their focus from making PlayStation 4 games to using PlayStation 5 development kits, according to a ResetEra post by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad.
"PS5 dev kits are out there and I've heard positive things about it. But I wouldn't expect any information in the immediate future," he wrote over the weekend.
The company's first-party developers include Naughty Dog (which makes Uncharted and The Last of Us), its Santa Monica Studio (God of War) and Sucker Punch (inFamous and the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima).
Ahmad noted that there's "definitely a lot in the pipeline for next gen" and we might get a few more details at Game Developers Conference, which runs in San Francisco from March 18–22.
However, he said Sony is expecting a strong 2019 for PS4, as noted by Techradar, which earlier reported on the post.
The games lineup for the first half of the year is set, Ahmad wrote, but the company is also looking into making some of its unannounced games cross gen (meaning they'll come out on PS4 and PS5) or next gen.
This seems likely, since several games from the latter part of the PlayStation 3 's run got simultaneous PS4 releases -- including Destiny, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts. Even games that came out years later, like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Persona 5, were released on both.
Sony didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
In October, Sony boss Kenichiro Yoshida reportedly acknowledged that the company's working on the next PlayStation, but stopped short of calling it PS5.
Before that, a patent suggested that it's looking to make the PS5 backward-compatible, and PlayStation boss John Kodera hinted that we'll see its next console in 2021. We've also gotten an indication that it's going by the internal code name "Erebus."
Culture: Your hub for everything from film and television to music, comics, toys and sports.
Everything about Fortnite: What you need to know about the hit game.