Mark Cherny, lead system architect of the PlayStation 4 has shown off some internal components of the next-generation PlayStation console, which is he not yet calling the PS5. The hardware includes a solid state drive and an extremely high-spec GPU capable of supporting ray tracing.
Mark met with Wired where a demo was shown off using the hardware. Mark revealed that the console will not be released in 2019 and confirmed that the console will be a true next-generation machine and not a “PS4 Pro” upgrade of current hardware.
The console’s GPU is a variant of the AMD Ryzen third generation and is a custom version of the Radeon’s Navi line. The GPU is a high-end chip capable of ray tracing with some high-performance results. It will have eight cores of the seven-nanometer Zen 2 chip. The console is also said to support 8K but will be dependant on your TV of course. Mark also touched on VR saying that the current PlayStation VR model will be supported by the PS5 but did not confirm whether Sony will be releasing a new version to release alongside the new console.
The demo which Mark showed off revealed the console’s new solid state drive. According to the report, fast-travelling between locations in Spider-Man on a standard PS4 Pro took 15 seconds while the new next-gen PlayStation devkit performed the same action in 0.8 seconds. The new console has also been confirmed to still support physical media and will not be a streaming and download-only device. The next-gen PlayStation will also be backwards compatible with PS4 games as Cerny revealed that the next-gen PlayStation console is partially based on PS4 architecture.
According to the report, Sony has been building the console for four years now and is no mere upgrade. The console’s big “game changer” will be the SSD as it will allow everything to load faster and open new doors to combine the GPU with the lightning-fast speeds and deliver something truly remarkable.
The AMD chip also included 3D Audio that Cherny says will redefine what sound can do in a video game. “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.”
Cerny indicated that the transition between the PS4 and the PS5 will be a “gentle one”. He added that numerous games will be released for both PS4 and the next-gen console.
