- The PS5 release date might currently be scheduled for Friday, November 13th, according to sources familiar with Sony’s plans and preparing for the console’s launch.
- VGC spoke with development and retail sources who have reportedly been told that the Xbox Series X will roll out on November 6th, and the PS5 will come a week later.
- Any of these release dates could change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
September starts next week, and yet we still do not know when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are coming out. Logic would dictate that both consoles should be available before the end of November, but the pandemic has forced Microsoft and Sony (and virtually every other company on the planet) to adjust on the fly, which is one of the primary reasons why the price and release date of each console is still a mystery as fall approaches.
It’s hard to imagine either company waiting much longer to announce availability details for the next-gen consoles, but we’ve been saying that since July, so it might be time to stop making assumptions. That said, a new report from Video Games Chronicle suggests that the PS5 release date might have already been set by Sony.
VGC’s development and retail sources claim that mid-November is the most likely launch window for the PS5. Sony has reportedly “already booked significant marketing spend for the seven days commencing on Friday, November 13” in the UK, and retail sources say that this timing lines up with what they’ve heard as well.
VGC also cites multiple unnamed sources which all claim that Microsoft will roll out the Xbox Series X before the PS5 hits the market. The company has supposedly already told retailers to plan for a launch in the first week of November, which would make Friday, November 6th the most likely release date for the Series X. This is not the first time we’ve heard that the new Xbox will come first or that it will come out on the first Friday of November.
“Products do launch during that time, especially as there’s a large number of people shopping over that weekend, but you’re going to find yourself competing with products that have been heavily discounted,” Gamer Network’s head of games B2B, Christopher Dring, explained to VGC. “Ideally, you’d want to launch before the end of November if you want to capitalise on the Christmas sales window, as getting your product out before the final payday of the year is a key move. Indeed, after Black Friday, the biggest sales day of the year for online retail tends to be Cyber Monday, which is usually the first Monday in December.”
None of these dates are official, but Sony did open registrations for PS5 preorders for existing customers earlier this week. With plans shifting on a daily basis, we won’t even bother to make any guesses about what this means in terms of preorder timing, but we’d be shocked if availability details weren’t shared in the next few weeks.
