Sony PS5 launch date LEAKED in internal email — and it's closer than you think

(Image credit: LetsGoDigital)

published 16 August 2019

The Sony PS5 will be unveiled at a "PlayStation Meeting 2020" launch event on February 21, 2020. At least, that's what a leaked internal email that surfaced online earlier this week would have you believe, with the sender revealing that the gathering will be used to showcase "the future of Sony PlayStation" to the world.

Before we dive deeper, we should note that the information detailed in this report should be taken with a considerable pinch of your preferred seasoning; the email first surfaced on 4Chan as a text extract, then later on NeoGaf in visual form, with both citing an anonymous insider as the source, so it's far from credible.

What else can we learn from the titbit, you ask? Well, the internal circular — sent by a former Senior Marketing Manager to the Marketing department — states that Sony has started preparing invitations for publishers, such as Activision, EA, and Ubisoft, to PlayStation Meeting 2020 to showcase their next-generation titles.

It also details that Ghost of Tsushima, which was announced for PS4 back in 2017 and has been delayed ever since, will make an appearance at Meeting 2020 as a PS5 exclusive, joining The Last of Us 2 in Sony's flagship portfolio for 2020. That's not to mean the title won't launch for PS4, though — it should be available on both.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room: The console itself. While the email doesn't detail Sony's plans to discuss the PS5 at the event, it's only fitting that it will touch on it. After all, the hardware is the missing part of the equation — and in order to embrace the future of PlayStation, we first need to know what's coming.

However, there are some scraps of information floating around internet that hint at what to expect — most of which originate from Wired's exclusive interview with PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny, who revealed that the CPU driving the console is based on the third generation of AMD's oft-raved-about Ryzen line of processors.

Cerny also divulged that the PlayStation 5 can run 8K graphics to boot, although whether it will be native 8K (versus 4K material that's been upscaled to the higher resolution) remains to be seen. All he was willing to confirm is that there's an SSD on board to help the machine render visuals at a faster rate, hinting at upscaling.

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