Surprisingly, Sony is on the offence about the next-generation console, due out in Holiday 2020.
A new article over on Wired has a ton of new details about the highly-anticipated gaming machine and confirms that Sony is sticking to tradition and calling it the PlayStation 5, a uniform decision to be sure.
First, Jim Ryan and system architect Mark Cerny spoke about ray tracing, which is a complex lighting effect in 3D environments. Cerny confirms that ray tracing is accomplished on the PlayStation 5 as part of the GPU hardware, and not as part of the software, as many were worried about. “There is a ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware,” Cerny says, “which I believe is the statement that people were looking for.”
Sony is pushing the solid-state drive quite a bit for the PlayStation 5. According to Cerny, it isn’t about the speed but the efficiency offered. Games for PlayStation 5 are expected to hit the 100 GB mark, so this makes sense that they want to be able to load the data quickly. The SSD offers raw speed and saves crucial space since developers often need to dupe game assets to form data blocks.
PlayStation 5 owners will be able to customize their installation process. If you want to install the multiplayer-only, while leaving the campaign for another day, you can do that. Finish the campaign and only want to play multiplayer? That is possible as well.
Mark Cerny spoke about the controller as well, confirming a new design was part of the next-generation. The reporter even held the prototype and spoke about adaptive triggers that offer varying levels of resistance when shooting a bow, making it more believable. Also, haptic feedback is confirmed, making it far better than the standard rumble we’ve come to know so well. There is even an improved speaker included, which can only be better than what the DualShock 4 offers.
After using the controller prototype, the reporter was impressed with what was shown, including a demo of Astrobot Rescue Mission and Gran Turismo Sport. Lastly, the PlayStation 5 controller includes a bigger battery and USB-C port for charging.
We’ll learn more in the coming months but for now, this is starting to shape up.
