PlayStation news: Guinness World Record, PS5 pre-orders, no PS Vita 2 development

There has been a smorgasbord of PlayStation-related news reported lately, ranging from the origins of the PlayStation brand right up to the future with the PS5. Proof that we are one small step closer to the next-gen console has been offered up by Best Buy, which is now allowing visitors to its site the opportunity to sign up for a notification for when the PS5 becomes available for pre-order. There’s no price for the device listed, with just the well-known “Holiday 2020” release time frame mentioned.

The original Sony PlayStation console was released on December 3, 1994, meaning it has just celebrated 25 years of existence. Guinness World Records has cooked up an appropriate award for the Japanese company for this special anniversary, honoring Sony with a certificate for coming up with the best-selling home consoles – 450 million units sold and counting. The PS5 seems destined to hit some heady heights in terms of sales too, so it’s likely that certificate will get updated to half a billion in the not too distant future.

Being a handheld console means that sales of the PlayStation Vita were not included in that massive total, although 10-15 million sales is nothing to be sniffed at. But it was a considerable drop from Sony’s previous handheld effort: The PlayStation Portable sold in the region of 80 million units. Factoring in such a decline in sales along with the current state of mobile gaming and smartphone usage, it seems reasonable for PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan to declare that the PlayStation Vita (or other PlayStation-branded handhelds) is “a business that we’re no longer in now”. PS5 coming soon; PlayStation Vita 2 not coming at all.