Even though Sony won’t be attending E3 this year, the company is not holding back on announcements this spring. The company has revealed today the specs for the next generation PlayStation and they are packing it with AMD’s latest technology.
The hardware is built around AMD’s Ryzen and Navi architectures with the CPU featuring 8 cores built at the 7nm level and the Navi GPU supporting ray tracing as well as 8k graphics. For storage, it will be an SSD that Sony says, in an interview with Wired, that it will support higher bandwidth than the current generation drives.
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There will also be a new 3D audio chip built into the device that is expected to deliver more immersive audio. While Sony was not talking about VR in the interview, it’s not hard to see how improved 3D audio would translate to more robust experiences while using PSVR.
And Sony is going to bring backwards compatibility to the platform. The company says that PS4 games will work with the next generation hardware which will make the transition between platforms easier for gamers who play titles for both the PS4 and PS5.
Sony did not announce any performance specs or talk about their next generation services like online play or game streaming offerings but with the baseline hardware announced, the next thing on the agenda should be how the company plans to differentiate its offering with unique IP and services.
Considering that Sony has now announced its specs, it opens the door for Microsoft to do the same. We know that the company will be talking about its next-gen hardware at E3 this year and it would make sense for them to announce what’s under the hood of Anaconda and Lockhart at that conference.
dontbe evil
<blockquote><em><a href="#421140">In reply to StoneJack:</a></em></blockquote><p>yeah I see how they focused on 4K for ps4 and ps4 pro … LOL</p>
dontbe evil
<p>suddenly all sony fans care again about backward compatibility and graphics</p>
My Hell baby speaking
<blockquote><em><a href="#421149">In reply to dontbe_evil:</a></em></blockquote><p>The reason why is obvious to everyone with two brain cells; over the last six years so many excellent games were released on Playstation, a lot of gamers still won't have made it through their huge PS4 back catalogue with the arrival of PS5.</p><p>Meanwhile, lamentable XBox gamers are sucking at controllers.</p>
Stooks
<blockquote><em><a href="#421191">In reply to Bill_Strong:</a></em></blockquote><p>You are rapidly losing people that actually care about higher and higher resolution content. In fact I bet less and less video content is even consumed on TV's in 2019. I watch more content on my iPad Pro than a TV these days. </p><p><br></p><p>My family seriously does not even care about 4K. We watch stuff together and most of the time we could go down in the basement and watch in on the bigger 4K TV with a better sound system and we dont. We stay up-stairs and watch it on a smaller 1080P with just TV speakers. It has to be a block buster of a movies with lots of specia effects to move us to the 4K tv.</p><p><br></p><p>I find that some 4K content is so detail that is almost looks weird. There is no 8K in my future that I can see. If it there is, it is because when I go to buy a new TV in 10 years I wont be able to find a HD/4K set at that time.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#421200">In reply to Stooks:</a></em></blockquote><p>The way I look at it, if you're still thinking about the resolution after 5 min of watching a movie, it's not a very good one. I think we are entering the realm of high resolution as primarily an enabler of bragging rights (if we aren't there already).</p>
Stooks
<blockquote><em><a href="#421149">In reply to dontbe_evil:</a></em></blockquote><p>IMHO it would be nice if all games were at least 1080p/60fps with no dynamic resolution on both the PS/Xbox consoles. I think only the Xbox One X can do that now and some games maybe could only handle 1080p/30fps with no dynamic on that platform.</p><p><br></p><p>8K is simply a BS marketing term.</p>
Stooks
<p>And my iPhone X on ATT has 5G…..or at least is says so.</p><p><br></p><p>The PS4 Pro is 4K……..ish. It is really a good 1080p gaming console with some 1080p+ checkerboard graphics on some games. </p><p><br></p><p>My whole point is that saying its "8K" means nothing or at least has meant nothing in the past. The PS3/Xbox 360 were "HD" gaming consoles that really meant 720p sometimes. The Xbox One and PS3 were true HD/1080p which meant sometimes they ran at 1080p 30fps.</p><p><br></p><p>Ray Tracing is another gimic word and considering the performance hit that PC games take when ray tracing is enabled on $1200 video cards like the 2080ti, I doubt we will see many, if any games on a console using it.</p><p><br></p><p>At this point the PS5 needs to be a huge hit because in 2019….Sony = PlayStation as it has sold off pretty much everything else to stay afloat.</p><p><br></p><p>Notice how they did not use the Teraflops rating? That would have been way more telling than 8K/Ray Tracing.</p>