The PlayStation 5 has faced a strange road since it launched back in 2020. Released in November of that year, Sony found itself at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, a pandemic that put a majority of the world in quarantine seemed like the ideal scenario for a company trying to sell a new gaming console, but one symptom of this lockdown proved to be one of the PlayStation 5's biggest hurdles: supply chain issues.
These supply chain issues were so significant that Sony didn't officially confirm the problem was solved until 2023. That wasn't the only problem caused by the pandemic, though. Development on a variety of games had slowed, and the result has been a console generation that has taken longer than anticipated to truly pick up steam. The PS5 is now five years old, and Sony exclusives have just recently started to leave the PS4 behind. Five years into its life-cycle, the PS5 is finally getting to stand on its own, but after a recent announcement from Kojima Productions, the PS6 may already have its first confirmed exclusive.
The PS5 is Finally Getting its Time in the Spotlight, But Kojima Productions' Physint Could Already Be Teasing the PS6's Future Lineup
Physint is Years Away at This Point
Earlier this week, Kojima Productions celebrated 10 years as a studio. The past decade has brought forth Death Stranding and its sequel, Death Stranding 2, which released back in June of this year. Death Stranding 2 launched as a PS5 exclusive, further demonstrating that the console has settled into its role as Sony's go-to platform. However, a fresh reveal for Kojima's in-development spy thriller project, Physint, is a reminder that the PS5's time in the spotlight may only be brief.
Back in May, Kojima claimed that Physint still has "another five or six years" before it would be ready. So, unless the game ends up being ahead of schedule, the earliest gamers can expect Physint is 2030. The wait for Physint is shaping up to be a long one, but with that timeline, it could easily put the espionage-focused game in line to be one of the first PS6-exclusive titles.
Rumors Suggest That the PS6 Isn't That Far Away
There have been a lot of rumors and theories regarding the PS6, but one of the most prevalent is that the console is expected to arrive either in late 2027 or sometime in 2028. The latter is probably the most likely possibility, but still, three years isn't exactly that far off. By that time, the PS5 will have been around for eight years, but with the supply chain issues keeping it from hitting its stride for the first few years, it feels like the console just got here. The PS5 still seems fresh, and there are plenty of gamers who haven't even bought one yet.
With major titles like the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 still holding onto the last generation of consoles, it's been an incredibly slow transition. Of course, games like Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, and Battlefield 6 are fully embracing current gen-exclusivity, but five years into a console's life cycle is a shockingly long amount of time for that to become the norm.
The PS5 Still Has a Few Years to Shine
Ghost of Yotei is set to be one of the last PS5 exclusives of the year, while intriguing roguelike Saros is one of the to be confirmed for 2026. Sony has other in-development titles like Marvel's Wolverine and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet in the works, as well. It will be interesting to see how the next few years go for the PS5, but it hopefully gets the chance to offer more exclusives before the PS6 arrives.
