Whether intentional or not, a presentation from Sony about their next generation PlayStation is now out in the wild, showcasing the system’s ultra-fast SSD loading times as discussed back in April. The company’s overarching goals with the upcoming generational leap have also been laid bare, with backward compatibility a cornerstone feature that Sony hope will help accelerate adoption of the new technology.
But first, here’s the off-screen video demoing just how big an impact the ultra-fast SSD in the PlayStation 5 will have:
Sony's official video comparing performance of PS4 Pro vs next-gen PlayStation pic.twitter.com/2eUROxKFLq
— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) May 21, 2019
Takashi Mochizuki, a Tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has previously tweeted to say that he had spoken to Sony and that “SIE PR says no release over next 12mo is response it is giving everyone when asked.” The next twelve months refers to the financial year running until March 2020.
Sony’s Mark Cerny was asked how much the new console would retail for and replied “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.”
Outlining their core pillars, SIE have committed to backward compatibility as a way of getting gamers to upgrade faster, but for new games, there’s an emphasis on the “transformative” and “immersive” capabilities of the new hardware, within a stable environment. They checklist the new CPU and GPU (with its “special sauce“), SSD, backward compatibility, ray tracing, 8K resolution support, disc-based games and 3D audio as key features.
With NVidia’s backing we can expect the ray tracing effects to be roughly equivalent to those making their way into PC games like Battlefield V and Metro Exodus. Cerny explained to Wired that this is more than about visual effects and discussed the 3D audio chip. “If you wanted to run tests to see if the player can hear certain audio sources or if the enemies can hear the players’ footsteps, ray tracing is useful for that. It’s all the same thing as taking a ray through the environment.”
Sony Next Generation Console Plan-
– Sony believes in generations and backwards compatibility
– Plan to enhance relations with 3P software devs
– Will support disc games next gen, 8K, 3D Audio, SSD, Ray Tracing.
– Faster loading times pic.twitter.com/iwNQDXaMpl— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 21, 2019
Sony’s Jim Ryan also confirmed they are investing in the first party studios and “Plan to expand through organic growth or acquisitions.”
Source: Takashi Mochizuki, Daniel Ahmad
