BODY: Sony's PlayStation 4 was supposed to be a memory by now. Instead, the 13-year-old console keeps showing up on release lists for one of gaming's biggest annual franchises โ and according to a well-connected leaker, that streak isn't ending anytime soon.
Leaker Alaix, who has previously surfaced accurate details about Vanguard's map pool and Black Ops skin collaborations, claims the next Call of Duty installment will once again target a PlayStation 4 release alongside current-generation hardware. If accurate, it would mark yet another year that Activision refuses to fully migrate the series to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S exclusivity.
The reasoning is straightforward economics. Call of Duty's annual sales depend on reaching the largest possible install base, and tens of millions of PS4 and Xbox One units remain in active homes worldwide. Cutting them loose would mean voluntarily shrinking the addressable market โ a hard sell for a publisher whose flagship franchise still anchors the holiday quarter.
Technically, the cost is performance compromises that have grown harder to ignore. Recent entries have shipped on last-gen with reduced textures, lower frame rates, and trimmed feature sets, and developers have openly acknowledged the strain of supporting hardware two generations behind.
The insider take
From Tokyo, the persistence of PS4 looks less surprising than it might from Western markets. Japan's console upgrade cycle has historically lagged โ the PS4 sold strongly here well into the PS5 era, partly because of Sony's domestic supply constraints during the early PS5 launch and partly because Japanese players tend to hold hardware longer. For Activision, keeping the PS4 SKU alive isn't just about Western holdouts; it's about not abandoning a market where the older console still has real cultural and economic gravity, even as Sony itself has clearly moved on.
Originally reported by Destructoid (English).