PS5 tipped to cost over £450 as Sony confirms it will run games in 8K
SONY has given the first official details about the next-generation PlayStation.
Talking to Wired about their “next-generation console”, the PS5’s lead system architect Mark Cerney revealed the tech inside that’s far in advance of any games console seen so far.
He also confirmed whole host of rumours we have heard about the PS5 but also delivered a few surprises.
It will be able to play all PS4 games, and will still play games from discs.
It’s going to be powered by AMD Ryzen CPU and Navi GPU technology, as expected, but those chips will bring features we’ve never seen on a console into the living room for the first time.
It is going to support ray-tracing for lighting effects — that’s a staple of Hollywood blockbuster quality video rendering but currently limited to very high-end graphics hardware.
That will mean the games on it will instantly look miles better than the current generation, because it creates proper reflections, shadows and everything else rather than a best guess low quality estimate of what they should be, as current hardware offers.
Wired also report the chips will have a new “custom unit for 3D audio” that will make new games sounds “dramatically different”, according to Cerney, compared to the minimal difference between PS3 and PS4.
It will also load games faster than ever before, as well as drastically cutting in-game load times.
It does that thanks to a built-in solid state drive as opposed to just having a conventional spinning hard drive — a demo described cutting an in-game 15s load time for Spider-Man on PS4 to just 0.8s using the new system.
Cerney confirmed that existing PlayStation VR hardware will work with the new console while hinting that a better version may be on the way as well.
The announcement follows a leak suggesting that the PS5 could cost over £400 when it launches in the UK.
The unverified “leak” posted in December but largely dismissed at the time is gaining attention after a number of predictions made in it have been backed up in the months since, as well as by Carney’s official revelations.
Horizon Zero Dawn 2 has just been confirmed, something the ‘leak’ promised four months agoIt suggests among other things that a launch is planned for 2020, as we have heard, with the chance of a reveal in late 2019.
It also claims that the console will cost $499 (£381) in the US at launch.
That indicates a UK price of over £450 once VAT has been factored in, given US prices are always listed without sales tax.
That difference would be the same as the PS4 Pro’s US and UK pricing too — the souped up PS4 costs £349 here but $399 in the USA.
The PS3 struggled when it launched at $499 and £425, with the high price blamed after the success of the $299 / £299 PlayStation 2.
The PS4 meanwhile launched at $399.99 / £349.99.
The ‘leaker’ claims to be a “small developer” who has been contracting for a large developer and working on a PS5 launch title, set for release in 2020.
While there is no way of verifying the claims, some of them have turned out to be quite prescient.
The leak promised a “Q2 2019 small reveal” — which is exactly what Cerney just provided.
The leak said the new device would have “some sort of nand flash”, which was confirmed by Cerney’s revelation about the new solid-state technology.
It also said the console would have the ability to upscale 4K games to 8K given the likely emergency of 8K TVs by the time the PS5 gets here — and 8K support was also confirmed by Cerney.
It contains references to a new wireless PSVR headset with more advanced graphics and eye-tracking, details which have since been backed up by Sony patents.
It also pins Horizon Zero Dawn 2 for release on PS5 — and the existence of the game was only confirmed this past weekend by one of the franchise’s voice actors.
The leak also makes reference to AMD’s 7nm architecture chips which we’re now pretty confident will power the PS5 and Xbox 2.
It also promises that The Last of Us Part Two and Ghost of Tsushima will essentially be cross-generation titles, with PS5 ‘remasters’ coming at launch for both games.
Again, this tallies with everything we’ve seen in the five months since the information was originally posted, as both games are expected for PS4 but all signs indicate that they’re still some way off.
The most outlandish suggestion is that GTA 6 is going to be here for Christmas 2020 — given the massive resources pumped into the 2018 release of Red Dead Redemption 2 by all of Rockstar’s studios, the odds of GTA 6 being ready by then seem quite remote.
The suggestion that a new Gran Turismo is coming is much more believable, but we’re not really sure what to make of the suggestion there will be a 4K PUBG remaster.
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Elsewhere in gaming there is news of a new Xbox due to be revealed this week, a trailer and first look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as well as news that the PS5 and Xbox 2 might be the last games consoles you ever need to buy.
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