PS5 is coming.
Sony
Sony has made it official. The PlayStation 5 is coming at the end of 2020, according to a post Tuesday on the PlayStation Japan website. The US PlayStation site also has a post confirming the release window of the PS5 for the US as being the 2020 holiday season.
Details of the PS5 were made available to Wired Tuesday. The new PlayStation will not only be a graphical upgrade but also a rethinking of certain aspects of a console. Here’s everything we know so far about the PS5 so far.
For starters, Sony is changing how the PS5 will handle storage. The new solid-state drive will make games boot up faster and reduce loading times, and the console will handle games installation in a new way. Users will be able to install just a game’s multiplayer or single-player campaign instead of installing the whole game.
«Rather than treating games like a big block of data,» system architect Mark Cerny told Wired, «we’re allowing finer-grained access to the data.»
In April, Sony held a demo of the SSD in action in the new console versus the PlayStation 4 Pro. A video showed the PS5 booting a game several times faster and having no slowdown when traversing in an open-world game.
Another big change will come with the console’s controller. Instead of «rumble» technology, Sony said in its post, controllers will use haptic feedback for a more refined vibration when playing a game. The left and right triggers will also use adaptive technology, making certain actions feel more realistic, such as pulling the string of a bow or the recoil of a gun. There will also be new speakers in the controllers as well as a USB-C port.
The PS5 will get a bump in graphics, including the use of ray tracing, which is a new way of handling lighting effects in a game. The console’s GPU will support the new tech. AMD already said it was working with Sony to make custom hardware to power the new system.
Sony also confirmed that PS5 dev kits are in the hands of developers who are working on new games for the console’s release.
Back in September, the PlayStation maker said the new console will be «greener.» If 1 million users make use of the PS5’s energy-saving feature, Sony said, that would save the equivalent of the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes.
Originally published on Oct. 8 at 5:23 a.m. PT.
Updates, 5:53 a.m., 6:34 a.m., 6:55 a.m.: Adds more background details.
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