What is time? It feels like PlayStation 5 was released yesterday, but it’s actually almost six years old . This is usually when we can expect to start hearing more about a console’s successor. Seven years is a typical console generation lifespan; no PlayStation has ever been released more than seven years after its predecessor, and the eight-year gaps between Switch and Switch 2, or Xbox 360 and Xbox One, are the longest ever for a home console. (Both pale next to the Game Boy’s incredible 12-year run, though.)

If it doesn’t feel like it’s time to start thinking about the PlayStation 6 yet, it’s because lengthening game development times have slowed the pace of new releases for PS5, because initial take-up of the console was slowed by supply issues, and because the COVID-19 pandemic distorted everyone’s sense of time. But the time is upon us all the same.

As it happens, there are reasons why the PS5 could keep going for a few years yet.…