Sony: PlayStation 5 is a “niche product” aimed at hardcore gamers

Sony’s next console, which for the moment everyone is referring to as the PlayStation 5, sounds like it’s going to be a bit of a beast. The Wall Street Journal report that the Japanese giant is targeting ‘hardcore gamers’ when the device launches, a date for which has not been set but it is expected arrive sometime in the latter half of 2020.

At a recent company strategy briefing Sony Chief Executive Kenichiro Yoshida discussed the machines power, highlighting features such as ray tracing. “Details when making games have become more important than ever,” he said.

The good news for us is that “Sony is concentrating its attention on large software publishers as it gets ready for the next PlayStation”, so should see some stonking games on the new console. They have recently stated that “the content becomes more important than ever” and are looking to buy more developers.

Sony still welcomes games from independent studios, the first Sony official said, but the emphasis is on strengthening relationships with large publishers since resources are limited. The thinking is, the official said, that people buy a console to play high-quality games available only on that platform, not smaller games also available on smartphones.

Another Sony official reported that they see Microsoft as their main competitor to begin with but Google’s Stadia may prove a threat in the longer term “as internet technology advances”. Nintendo are not seen as a direct competitor as their product is aimed at a younger market than those who play on PlayStation.

Sony’s recently explained one feature the PlayStation 5 will have something that no other console will have, special sauce. The PS5 will having an appealing price, and will be backwards compatible with PlayStation 4 games. Other specs revealed are:

• Eight core third generation AMD Ryzen at 7nm
• Semi-custom Radeon Navi GPU
• SSD hard drive
• Ray traced graphics and audio
• 8K video output
• 3D audio

Source: WSJ