The PS5 reveal event was delayed by Sony because of work from home concerns, suggests a new rumor. Other reports have said that Sony will be holding a PS5 reveal event as soon as next week, but the company has not officially announced its plans.
Speaking to Blessing as part of the May 27, 2020 episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, journalist Alanah Pearce revealed that Sony dropped several plans to hold a PS5 reveal event earlier in the year. Pearce, whose sources are developers who were supposed to be part of these presentations, said that Sony was "obsessed with the idea of having a very, very professional stream rather than something previously recorded." Sony wasn't willing to do something "outside of a massive studio with a crew of like 25-30 people" and refused to do it with "at-home-quality stuff," said Pearce.
Many PlayStation fans will be wondering what the big deal is. The Xbox Series X gameplay reveal was largely made up of game announcement trailers, cut together with segments where the Xbox Series X team spoke from their own homes. While the video recording quality was nowhere near as high as the same thing had it been recorded in a studio with a large crew, that was quite low down on the list of things that viewers criticized.
Fans may also be incredibly frustrated hearing that they could have potentially gotten more PS5 information a lot sooner. Sony has revealed the design of the PS5 controller, which is officially called DualSense, and has confirmed the specs but other details about the console have eluded them. The PlayStation community is being kept in the dark about the console's price, launch titles, and availability as there are rumors that the PS5 will be in limited supply at launch.
Some may say that this has worked in Sony's favor. Rumors that the PS5 will be more expensive than the Xbox Series X has set expectations early, meaning that few will be surprised if or when Sony drops the bombshell that the console will cost $500.
The decision to show an Unreal Engine 5 demo as the first PS5 gameplay has also helped to get fans excited for the console. The Unreal Engine 5 demo is playable on PS5 devkits but this isn't what games on the console will look like at launch as the game engine isn't available to developers until next year. Fans may know this but by offering up a game engine demo in lieu of a bigger PS5 reveal event, Sony may have won more than it has lost by obsessing over broadcast quality.