PS5 Release Date, News & Rumors: Hard Disk Drive Eliminated in 2020?

Sony has positioned itself to be one of the world's top contenders in gaming technology today. Starting up the celebrated PlayStation platform in the 90s, the company has evolved into a modern-day giant with millions of sold consoles and registered accounts worldwide.

More recently, its flagship console, PS4, has taken the gaming market by storm, gaining at least 40% advantage over rival Xbox One. According to ExtremeTech, the PS4 could even hit a 100% sales gap against Microsoft's flagship.

That seems to put much pressure to Sony on its creation of the PS5. Currently, The REM reported that debate is spurring at the company's back end management, heating up on discussions whether or not change in their product's established disposition is necessary.

In addition, the outlet mentioned that Sony might ditch the physical, hard disk drive once and for all -- and opt for today's cloud technology. Note that PlayStation has an existing Online Storage program, where progress data from games may be saved for later access in another console.

But our previous report tells otherwise, as TechRadar believed that disc drives are here to stay. The outlet cited Official PlayStation Magazine's former editor Ben Wilson who said, "Steam on PC has taught us that disc drives are becoming less and less necessary, but I can't see them being phased out completely for a while yet."

"There will always be those who prefer special editions and sexy packaging to invisible downloads, and it's those guys and girls who'll ensure disc drives live on within gaming in some form," he added.

The REM also noted that PS5 is reportedly coming out in 2020. This coincides with our previous report -- but we also revealed that the console might be meeting its rival in the form of Xbox 2, which is likewise alleged to come out in the same year.

AMD's senior vice president and chief financial officer Devinder Kumar said previously, "These are long life cycle products and as you know in the semi-custom space. Three years before you introduce a product, a decision is made to use a particular company. In this case it was AMD."

AMD is the company behind PS4 and Xbox One's Jaguar CPU, including Wii U's GPU.

From his viewpoint, it appears prospects will have to wait for some more time to finally get their hands on the newest consoles.

Following the apparent long gap before the current-gen consoles succeeded the PS3 and Xbox 360, EA Studios EVP Patrick Soderlund said via Trusted Reviews that five or six years may distance the successors from the PS4 and Xbox One.

Can't wait to see how the PS5 looks like? Head out for some concept images here.