I didn't say wide and used quote marks for a reason, dev-kits could just be an idea, the spec of a GPU+CPU and developers could target that.
It does not have to be a psychical machine, certainly not anymore, there's no logic to think a new system will launch without any games.
I don't recall any system launching as such, games are always being made and it's a process that never stops, if developers got word of what to target well that's your dev-kit right there.
The final spec, shape and all that can come later, but to say or to even think that games aren't being made for the machine behind closed doors is to be blind...."dev-kit" or not.
Eh, again, not really. I'm well aware that initial development takes place on computers rather than development kits. My entire argument sort of hinges on that point. However, dev kit doesn't mean target specs, it means a physical development kit. It's a standard industry term. This rumor, be it fact or crap, is talking about physical development kits, not virtual machines. As for wide distribution, the rumor is vague enough that we
could be getting a leak from a "trusted partner" or first party, which would certainly give us a longer lead time than that 18 months I quoted. However, trusted partners are usually trusted because they don't leak, and first parties are crazy tight-lipped. It makes more sense to assume that--if you take this rumor as true at all--we're talking about companies like Ubisoft and Activision having a physical development kit in house.
I'm not sure what you're going on about in the middle there, but the only one applying the "logic" that demands this system launch without games if it launches before 2021 is you. Of course it will launch with games. Games are being developed for next gen today, whether next gen hits in 2019, 2021, or beyond. Hell, Square Enix is probably already developing launch games for the PS6's launch, though perhaps not intentionally. =P
So I'm not saying the PS5 will launch in 2019 or won't launch as late as 2021. What I'm saying is,
if you take this rumor as fact, and
if you accept the common definition for standard industry terms like "dev kit," and
if you assume that dev kits will precede the console launch by the usual 18 months (give or take 6), then you can't really turn around and say, "Well of course this means we won't see launch until 2021 because games take 3-4 years to develop."
