Over the last decade, Sony has revolutionized the gaming experience, with its PlayStation gaming console series. It started out with the PS1 and more recently, the much anticipated PlayStation 5 which everyone has been raving about.
The PlayStation 5 is the next-generation PlayStation, with a release date planned for late 2020.
The PlayStation has always offered more to the AV world than just games. It has scored well with DVD playback, Blu-rays and 4K streaming over the years. Sony hasn’t released much info about the PS5, but some piece of concrete information we know is the PS5 controller, called the ‘DualSense‘ controller. A thing of beauty it is.
It boasts of some impressive sound features such as haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and a built-in mic. What is, arguably, most interesting about the DualSense controller is its radically different look and space-age black-and-white color scheme, which suggests that the PS5 design will look something similar and will be a big departure from its predecessors.
The controllers also incorporate adaptive triggers in the L2 and R2 buttons. If developers choose, they can program resistance into the triggers so you can feel a “tactile sensation” of drawing a bow, accelerating a vehicle off-road and more. It makes games more immersive overall.
DESIGN
At the recent Future Of Gaming stream, Sony finally unveiled the PS5 design and it is indeed beautiful.
With PlayStation 5, we are making a significant leap to deliver a truly new generation of transformative play experiences that will redefine expectations for what games can be,
Worlds will be richer and more beautiful, they’ll captivate your senses in ways you didn’t think possible, and you’ll be able to experience them much more seamlessly, with lightning-fast loading. Today’s showcase is just a glimpse of what’s to come in the next generation, and we want to thank our community for taking this journey to PS5’s launch with us.
Jim Ryan, president, and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment
Ps5 Digital Edition
The most important news about our new favorite console? Sony is offering two different versions, a standard model with an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive, and a digital model without a disc drive.
SPECS
CPU: AMD Zen 2-based CPU with 8 cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
GPU architecture: Custom RDNA 2
Memory interface: 16GB GDDR6 / 256-bit
Memory bandwidth: 448GB/s
Internal storage: Custom 825GB SSD
IO throughput: 5.5GB/s (raw), typical 8-9GB/s (compressed)
Expandable storage: NVMe SSD slot
External storage: USB HDD support (PS4 games only)
Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray drive
Sony claims that the PS5 is 100 times faster than the PS4, all thanks to its speedy SSD.
PRICE
Sony hasn’t officially confirmed a PS5 price yet and, according to the company, that’s because it hasn’t actually decided how much the next-gen console will cost but rumours going round suggest that it would cost between $499 – $650. The cost to manufacture one is reportedly $450, according to a Bloomberg report in mid-February. One contributor to the steep cost is the low supply of DRAM and NAND flash memory that’s also used in smartphones. Even so, Sony may still give the PS5 a lower price tag in order to compete with Microsoft and its upcoming Xbox Series X.
RELEASE DATE
Last October, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO, Jim Ryan, offered up new details about the PS5, including the 2020 holiday season release window. The company has recently confirmed the PS5 release date is still on course for a ‘Holiday 2020‘ release in the US, meaning it should be out between October and December 2020 and would not be delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PS5 is going to be in direct competition with the Xbox Series X, which is coming also in Holiday 2020.
PS5 Pro
Sony has not released any report about a PS5 pro. At this point, it’s not certain if the PS5 Digital Edition is the Pro and there is no strong indication that the tech giant may be releasing one anytime soon.
Will PS4 and older games work on it? Sony says the PS5’s chip was designed to incorporate the logic and features of the PS4’s, making it natively backward compatible with older games and in addition, it says that an “overwhelming majority” of the 4,000 PS4 games will work on the PS5. The faster components will probably deliver a speed boost to those existing games as well. We don’t know if older games will get a quality boost automatically, along the lines of the Xbox Series X’s HDR reconstruction.
