In an exclusive interview with Wired, Mark Cerny, Sony's lead architect on the PlayStation 4, finally answers some questions about the upcoming PlayStation 5, Sony's top-of-the-line next-gen console.
Here are some of the questions answered and rumors put to rest during the interview. If you want to read the whole thing, you can click here.
The PS5 is no mere upgrade
“The key question,” Cerny says, “is whether the console adds another layer to the sorts of experiences you already have access to, or if it allows for fundamental changes in what a game can be.” Cerny is likely referring to the recent PS4 Pro, which for all intents and purposes, is what he would describe as a refresh. The upcoming PS5 is a whole new beast, leaving behind its predecessors in the dust.
The next-gen console won't be released this 2019
To the surprise of almost no one, it seems that Sony is complacent in its position as the top console manufacturer and is pushing back its next-gen console for later, most probably next year. That said, Sony has confirmed that a number of studios have already been hard at work with devkits of their own, to familiarize themselves with the technology and for the console exclusives once it inevitably releases.
Power never seen before
Cerny shared some insight into what kind of power the PS5 will have under the hood, and this will probably delight PlayStation fans everywhere. He confirms that the CPU will be based off of AMD's third generation Ryzen line, containing eight cores AND utilizing the company's new 7nm Zen 2 infrastracture. What this basically boils down to is that the PS5 will probably be the first console in the market to benefit from this kind of technology. The GPU, Cerny adds, is a custom variant of Radeon's upcoming Navi family and - in another twist - will fully support ray tracing. You read that right. The upcoming PS5 will be the first console to support something as graphically intensive as ray tracing - a technology still in its infancy in the gaming world. Outside of the PS5, only Nvidia's top-of-the-line RTX cards currently support ray tracing, quite an achievement for a console.
The AMD chip also includes a custom unit for 3D audio, something Cerny feels was neglected during the PS3 going to the PS4 era. “As a gamer,” he 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.”
Finally - SSDs
What particularly soured my experience in playing Bloodborne was the load times. It was something I believe could've made my time with the game so much better. For everyone like me who's struggled with these incredibly long wait times, Cerny finally has an answer - SSDs. Finally, a console that runs on one. Although details are still unknown on what kind of SSDs they will be using and who's manufacturing it, the simple fact that they will finally be addressing this issue is great and much appreciated.
While there's still a lot of questions regarding Sony's next-gen console, it's good to know even a few details about it. The fact that surprised me the most is that they are able to utilize such power in a console - if this trend picks up it may make the case for buying one much more attractive to other players. In any case, there's still a ways to go, and a lot more could still be revealed in the coming months.
