Sony’s next generation PlayStation console is not exactly just around the corner — in fact, Mark Cerny, a system architect working on Sony’s PlayStation division, has confirmed in an interview with Wired that if anything, the next generation PlayStation is not launching in 2019 at all. However, Cerny has also confirmed a bunch of other details about the upcoming console, which should be named Sony PlayStation 5, as per convention.
According to him, the Sony PlayStation 5 will feature the new, third generation AMD Ryzen processor, based on the 7nm Zen 2 fabrication process. With the reduced size of the die, the processor represents a significant increase in performance and efficiency over the present generation PlayStation 4 Pro. This, paired with a custom AMD Radeon Navi GPU, is slated to bring ray tracing graphics to the PlayStation 5. Alongside representing the very first time that ray tracing graphics will appear on a console, the new configuration will enable 8K resolution gaming, although you may be hard pressed to find a screen that supports such high resolution playback, at the moment.
The second big performance upgrade to the upcoming PlayStation console is the use of a high performance SSD for storage, instead of a spinning disc hard drive. Given the advantages of faster data transfers, this move itself will reportedly bring about a significant difference in gameplay, once developers start working on the dev kits shared by Sony. This will not only drastically improve load times, but also enable features such as fast travelling within a game (the demo given to Wired by Cerny showed Spiderman in action), more lucid action animations, and general movement and transit-related animations within a game. For reference, the 15-second duration required for the fast travel feature within the Spiderman game now takes only 0.8 seconds, in the hardware configuration of the new PlayStation.
The new AMD processor also includes a custom module for 3D stereo audio, which will add immersive direction vectors to audio output through any sources, be it default TV speakers or circumaural headphones. This, too, can make a whole world of difference, since natively immersive audio has the potential to significantly add to the overall richness of the gameplay experience. The last and final point shared by Cerny is backward compatibility, wherein the PlayStation 5 will remain compatible with games released for the PlayStation 4 consoles. This will come as a major relief for gamers that have purchased and downloaded multiple games for the PS4 platform, over the past few years.
However, it is highly likely that for the PS4 games to make the most of the new console’s abilities, developers will be required to release remastered versions of the old games, now with added graphical and aural abilities. New games are still slated to release for the PlayStation 4 platform alongside the PlayStation 5, at least initially. The new PlayStation will also have some form of integration with the PlayStation VR, and it remains to be seen how this integration pans out.
This leaves the ball in Microsoft’s court, right on the heels of its E3 keynote date announcement. Will the new Xbox live up to the potential presented by the new PlayStation console, or fall back? Or, will Microsoft pull one above Sony, and take gaming consoles to even greater heights? As of now, the month of June is what should hold more answers to this debate, which will pick up pace next year.
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