Sony reveals new PS5 details: SSD, Raytracing, backwards compatibility
PS5 lead designer Mark Cerny revealed new information regarding the next Playstation in a recent interview. Among other things, the console is said to support up to 8K resolution and have PS4-enabled hardware.
First and foremost. No, you can’t pre-order the PS5 here yet. I can certainly understand why you’d want to, given the recent news. In an exclusive interview with tech blog Wired, system designer Mark Cerny first revealed official information about the next console generation.
As with the PS4, the PS5 will use an AMD CPU. More specifically, a third-generation Ryzen, with eight cores and new 7-nm 2-Zen micro architecture. Sony’s also playing it same when it comes to graphical hardware. The GPU will be a variant of Radeon’s Navi family of models. What’s exciting is that this GPU is purported to support Raytracing. Sony’s new console is officially trying to rival Nvidia RTX cards. From a technological standpoint that is, not from performance. Cerny didn’t mention anything about that. He did, however, drop a further bombshell regarding resolution. The PS5 shall support 8K. Cerny did admit that few TVs support this innovation. As the PS4 is still struggling with 4K settings, it’s improbable that future games will suddenly be playable in even greater graphical brilliance. Upscaling via checkerboarding is imaginable. Maybe Cerny meant that the PS5 will be able to display 8K content, but not process it itself.
Long loading times nevermore!
The PS5’s hard drive is also trying to catch up to today’s PCs. Whereas lightning-fast SSDs are common practice among them, the PS4 and Xbox One are still lagging behind with sluggish HDDs. This makes the loading times of many games almost unbearable (see «Anthem» or «Red Dead Redemption 2»). According to Cerny, this will all end soon. Using a PS5 development kit while playing «Marvel’s Spiderman», he demonstrated how drastically loading times were shortened. A PS4 took 15 seconds to load. The devkit 0.8.
Another focus point is 3D audio. Something many were frustrated about was the unchanged state of audio from the PS3 to the PS4, Cerny stated. «With the next console the dream is to show how dramatically different the audio experience can be when we apply significant amounts of hardware horsepower to it.» External speakers wouldn’t be necessary for this new audio experience, he claimed. TV speakers should also be able to benefit from this «immersive» 3D audio.
Compatibility with PS4 games and PSVR
Something that could ease the transition to new consoles could be the reported backwards compatibility of the PS5. All your PS4 games will be playable on it – even PSVR titles. Cerny didn’t state if new VR goggles were in the works. Instead, he clarified that the current headset could be connected to this new console.
Source: Twitter: @YakuzaNiuja4k
Cerny bit his tongue when it came to questions about pricing. His statement: «I believe that we will be able to release it at an SRP (suggested retail price) that will be appealing to gamers in light of its advanced feature set.». The PS5 probably be at the costlier end of console prices.
The most important news, however, concerns the release date. The PS5 will definitely not release this year, Thanos-snapping one of my 2019 predictions to dust (article in German). Whyyyyy Sony, whyyyyyy? My budding career as a fortune teller is hereby officially destroyed.
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Being the game and gadget geek that I am, working at digitec and Galaxus makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop – but it does take its toll on my wallet. I enjoy tinkering with my PC in Tim Taylor fashion and talking about games on my podcast http://www.onemorelevel.ch. To satisfy my need for speed, I get on my full suspension mountain bike and set out to find some nice trails. My thirst for culture is quenched by deep conversations over a couple of cold ones at the mostly frustrating games of FC Winterthur.