Here's Everything We Know Of Sony’s AMD Zen 2-Powered PlayStation 5
Sony has been rather forthcoming with details of its next generation PlayStation 5 game console and though the new system isn’t as close to reality as we would like, there’s certainly a lot of information on the AMD-powered game cosole out there that we’ve been mining and reporting recently on for passionate gamers. Let’s run down a list of what we know and see if we can paint a clearer picture of what to expect with the next generation Sony PS5.
PlayStation 5 Specs And Backwards Compatibility
Sony hasn't been shy about committing to what gamers can expect under the hood of the machine that some say has been running around in certain developer circles in dev kit form recently. First, PlayStation head system architect Mark Cerny confirmed that in fact PS5 will be based on an AMD Zen 2-based Ryzen octal-core / 16-thread processor with the pixels being pushed by AMD’s next-generation Navi GPU. Word is the GPU will support hardware-assisted real-time ray tracing as well. It was also briefly mentioned that the console will support 8K gameplay, but frankly, we’ll believe that when we see it. Cerny also underscored that the machine will have hardware-assisted 3D audio processing and blistering-fast Solid State Drive (SSD) storage for faster game and level load times that will be a welcome performance lift for gamers. "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,” Cerny explained. Finally, what’s impressive here is how well AMD continues to mop-up console architecture design wins.
Thankfully, we also heard that PlayStation 5 will be backwards compatible with PlayStation 4 games. Further, the platform will also not go the way of the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition discless approach, so purchasing physical game copies and using those older PS4 discs is all still in the cards.
Another key backwards compatibility feature that PlayStation 5 will bring is support for PSVR, at least the current headset. Cerny was cagey about sharing information beyond that, only noting “VR is very important to us,” so it’s anyone guess what’s coming down the pipe for new capabilities here but it’s fairly clear the company plans to support VR gaming in future generation console products.
PlayStation 5 Price And Availability
That brings us to price and availability. Sony hasn’t directly committed to a specific price target yet but Mark Cerny also noted that he believes “that we will be able to release it at an SRP (suggested retail price) that will be appealing to gamers in light of its advanced feature set." The original PS4 debuted at $399, with the PS4 Pro commanding the same price point when it hit the market. Some rumors have been floating around that Sony might push to a $499 cost of entry for the PS5 but beyond Cerny’s specific guidance, the rest is all just speculation.
And finally on availability, Sony did recently drop a bit of a buzzkill on eager console gamers, noting that their next generation PlayStation would not launch within the next 12 months. So the alleged devkit that’s been making the rounds certainly isn’t representative of anything remotely resembling a shipping product, though it may have certainly silicon platform engines under the hood that can help key devs get a handle on some of its forthcoming capabilities.
Regardless, stay tuned here and we’ll try to keep painting a more complete picture of not only Sony’s but Microsoft’s next-gen console products.
