The PS5 Perk That Will Blow You Away

The battle for the next console generation will start in the holiday season later this year, pitting Microsoft's Xbox Series X against Sony's PlayStation 5. At the moment, both systems are in very different stages of the reveal process.

We know pretty much everything there is to know about the Xbox Series X aside from its price. The PlayStation 5, though? Plenty of technical details have been made public. We've seen the controller. What we haven't seen, however, is the machine itself.

Fortunately for Sony, gamers will probably care less about what the PlayStation 5 ultimately looks like, or how the system's dashboard functions. People may not be as caught up in how intricate ray tracing is on the PlayStation 5 versus the competition. If the PS4 proved anything, it's that a solid lineup of exclusives can help a console soar. The PS5 will likely have those in droves.

Despite all the fancy new tech Sony is cramming into the PlayStation 5, games may once be its biggest differentiating factor. The PlayStation brand has a host of fantastic properties it can turn to, and there's no reason to believe Sony won't take advantage of that fact after the PS5 arrives.

Let's start with the softballs first.

We already know that Sony has two high-profile exclusives coming in The Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima. These two games are bumping up right against the line between this current console generation and the next, which means you can almost certainly expect versions to come to PS5. Whether they're dedicated ports or patched upgrades is anybody's guess, but it certainly seems likely this will happen.

In fact, it seems especially likely now that The Last of Us Part 2 has been delayed indefinitely. The previous release date of May 29, 2020 has been tossed out with no replacement as of yet. Ghost of Tsushima – set to release on June 26 — could be headed for a similar fate if the coronavirus pandemic doesn't let up. The closer those titles are to the launch of the PS5, the more it makes sense to put them on the new machine.

Sony will undoubtedly turn to Guerrilla to pump out a couple of hits for the PS5, as well. Horizon Zero Dawn was a huge success for the studio, and there are rumblings a sequel is already being worked on. A Horizon Zero Dawn 2 would be a huge system seller, but don't forget Guerrilla also became well known for another major franchise prior to Horizon — Killzone.

Microsoft will have Halo Infinite at the launch of the Xbox Series X. Sony coming back to Killzone would also make a ton of sense, though we may not see it for a while.

It sounds crazy, but we've come this far without mentioning perhaps the biggest franchise of them all in the PlayStation family — one we could see make a return on the PS5. We're talking, of course, about Uncharted. After four mainline games and one spinoff, it's possible the world has seen the last of the Drake family. But it's highly doubtful Sony would let the IP simply fade into obscurity. A new Uncharted on the PlayStation 5 would do a lot to move consoles and bring people into the PlayStation ecosystem.

And Sony will almost certainly lock down a couple of exclusives from third-party developers. With the company's recent purchase of Insomniac Games, a Spider-Man 2 seems like a lock. The first title was a huge hit, so it wouldn't be crazy to see everyone's favorite web-slinger back in action. There's Bloodborne, too. It remains to be seen if Sony can convince From Software to come back for a second round, but if it happens, you can expect that one to sell very well.

There are countless other studios we didn't even get to mention over at Sony. There's Bend, for instance, which worked on Days Gone. There's also SIE Japan, which has developed titles like The Last Guardian and Gravity Rush. It's not clear what these particular studios are up to right now, but their projects are bound to be exclusives. They're also worth keeping an eye on as we approach the next generation.

As you can see, Sony has a stable of big-name properties ready to go. It has a ton of development talent at its disposal. It has the luxury of entering the next gen as the reigning champ. Where games are concerned, there's no reason to think Sony's biggest asset in the years to come won't be its exclusives once more. Whether it can once again capture the crown, though — that remains to be seen.