It's no surprise that the next generation of consoles is upon us. But when exactly, we can't say for sure. For Sony, its PlayStation 5 is not going to be retailed this year. Speaking to Wired, Sony's Mark Cerny, the lead system architect for the PS4, provided some juicy details regarding the company's much awaited console, but also noted that their "next-gen console won’t be landing in stores anytime in 2019".

Release date aside, Cerny provided more details regarding the specs of the device. As expected, the latter will boast a better CPU and GPU. More specifically, the home console will pack a CPU based on the third generation of AMD’s Ryzen line with eight cores of the company’s new 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture, and for its GPU, a custom variant of Radeon’s Navi family, with ray tracing support will be embedded.

Cerny notes that the ray tracing technology will have more use than just improving on the visual aspect on this 8K-compatible device. “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,” he says. “It's all the same thing as taking a ray through the environment.”

More than just focusing on the visuals, Sony is also laying emphasis on the audio, stating that the AMD chip also packs a custom unit for 3D audio. “As a gamer,” Cerny says, “it's been a little bit of a frustration that audio did not change too much between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. With the next console the dream is to show how dramatically different the audio experience can be when we apply significant amounts of hardware horsepower to it.”

Of note, the PlayStation 5 will also come with a solid state drive (SSD) which will drastically improve in-game load times. During the interview, Wired had a glimpse of this when Cerny compared fast travel in 2018's Spider-Man between a PS4 Pro and a PS5 dev-kit: it took 15 seconds on the PS4 Pro while it a mere 0.8 seconds on the PS5.

Wait, that's all cool but Spider-Man is getting a re-release on the PS5?! Not quite. According to the interview, this next-gen PlayStation will be partly based on the PS4’s architecture, and will also be backward-compatible with PS4 games. Also compatible with the PS5 will be the current PSVR headset. Moreover, the next generation of PlayStation-branded console will still support physical media instead of being a download-only device.

So what do you think of the next PlayStation so far? Which features do you wish it to support and do you think Sony will implement them?

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[RedoLane]

I now believe without a single doubt that the PS5 is going to be released in 2020.
If they share information about it right now, this could only mean that the development kit has been released to other companies and developers, and they might show tech demos and graphic demonstrations near the end of 2019.

 

[Reploid]

Maybe they'll provide real games this time, not misapprehensions like ughcharted

 

[ombus]

If a release in 2020 is happening then the chances to see/hear something at e3 increases.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Neat. Sounds nice, but I'll wait until the official announcement before really deciding how I feel.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Still can't get backwards compatibility for ps3-ps2-ps1?

I hope it can least play audio cd and install music to the system.

All that sounds nice and all but still, if the games aren't fun, then it's worthless by itself, not to mention censorship still going to impact games under a certain degree.

 

[Wrathcaster]

An ssd and backwards compatibility. *Rubs hands*

 

[duwen]

Sounds very promising so far, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for backwards compatability for disks from all of Sony's previous home consoles (...and an unrealistic wishlist hope for it to also include a UMD drive and Vita cart slot).

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Sounds very promising so far, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for backwards compatability for disks from all of Sony's previous home consoles (...and an unrealistic wishlist hope for it to also include a UMD drive and Vita cart slot).

Having support for HD vita/psp games sounds like a good idea. If only Nintendo made a HD 3DS/NDS system or accessory to continue their "Gameboy player" trend.

 

[Bladexdsl]

holy shit playstation is going ryzen! gonna be epic

Moreover, the next generation of PlayStation-branded console will still support physical media instead of being a download-only device.

and will also be backward-compatible with PS4 games.

they made the right choice

 

[kumikochan]

Well this news might make me buy a ps5. Def more interested after hearing this

 

[tech3475]

Hopefully Sony don't find some way to balls it up as this does make me hopeful.

Of note, the PlayStation 5 will also come with a solid state drive (SSD) which will drastically improve in-game load times.

I find that hard to believe, at least on retail units unless they are going for a premium price or it's going to be relatively small.

Maybe an SSHDD or some other kind of smaller cache drive included.

Moreover, the next generation of PlayStation-branded console will still support physical media instead of being a download-only device.

Thank ****, I hope they add UHD support though.

 

[Owenge]

Sounds very promising so far, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for backwards compatability for disks from all of Sony's previous home consoles (...and an unrealistic wishlist hope for it to also include a UMD drive and Vita cart slot).

They are too focused on running the “newer and better” games...

Also can we get the XMB menu back.... that was such a good home menu. It could probably use a revamp but still

 

[AmandaRose]

If a release in 2020 is happening then the chances to see/hear something at e3 increases.

Sony are not attending E3 this year but doesn't mean they won't announce something at a similar time.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I find that hard to believe, at least on retail units unless they are going for a premium price or it's going to be relatively small.

SSDs have gotten significantly cheaper the last couple years, even a 1TB SATA SSD can be had for anywhere from $100-$150 for consumers nowadays vs the hundreds it would've cost during the PS4's release. It's not that far fetched that Sony could secure high capacity SSDs for cheap in 2019.

 

[Something whatever]

I like what i read here, especially the fact that it wont be a download console only, plus the ps4 compatibility ofc.

 

[fadx]

"8K compatible device" hahaha fuck off, definately not intending to mislead people into thinking it's gonna run games at 8K.

 

[RPG_FAN128]

Geez, NOW this one is going to be BWC with PS4 games? I should have held off just a bit longer and bought the PS5 instead.

 

[pedro702]

physical media will live for another decade at least thank god, and backwards compatibility needs to be native not like xbox where your disc is basically a drm key and then you need to download the entire game, so no internet no backward compatibility on xbox, i want native backwards compat, and it would be amazing if sony released a premium version which would run all discs backwards compat ps1,ps2,ps3,ps4, i would pay an extra 100$ just for this.

 

[warmo161]

Hopefully Sony don't find some way to balls it up as this does make me hopeful.



I find that hard to believe, at least on retail units unless they are going for a premium price or it's going to be relatively small.

Maybe an SSHDD or some other kind of smaller cache drive included.



Thank ****, I hope they add UHD support though.

I dont think sony will use a SSHDD hybrid drive, there are reports about reliability, my guess is a M.2 sized SSD and a usual HDD, and even going to a stretch, games be designed with critical data on one drive and everything else on the HDD, but then companies may exploit that feature... (Black ops 4 is a nighmare with HDD usage)