It’s one of the most anticipated consumer electronics products of the
year, but waiting for its arrival has been less like breathless anticipation
and more like watching grass grow. Finally, however, the full picture has
emerged.
We’re talking about the PlayStation
5, the successor to the wildly successful PS4, one of the best-selling games
consoles of all time. It has sold more than 110-million units, beaten only by
the PS2, at over 155-million, and Nintendo’s DS and Game Boy ranges, which sold
154-million and 118-million respectively. The original PlayStation from 1994
takes 5th place, with 102-million sales.
Little wonder that there is so
much anticipation, and all the more surprising that Sony did not take full
advantage of the hype. As a result, during Sony’s
developer event in March, when it unpacked the specs of the PS5, it received a
lukewarm media reception. Not because the specs were not impressive, but
because rattling off on specs without showcasing what they can do is not going
to grab headlines.
Finally, earlier this month, Sony officially unveiled two models: a
version with a 4K Blu-ray drive and one without, which will be called
“PlayStation 5 Digital Edition”. Aesthetically, the Digital edition is slimmer
and will probably cost less because of the absence of Blu-ray hardware. Both
will be out in time for the December holidays.
A new controller called the DualSense controller marks the end of
the DualShock series controllers. The redesigned controller now features haptic
feedback, a built-in microphone, and a new ergonomic design.
A number of other accessories have also been revealed, including a
charging station for the new controllers, a new camera for streamers, a
wireless headset that supports 3D sound, and a media remote for those who will
be doubling up their PS5 as a Netflix device.
Sony also revealed that the PS5 will be able to support over 4000
PS4 games, meaning players can sell off their PS4s to subsidize their PS5s.
And now, the new PS5 game titles are being announced thick and fast.
On Thursday night, giant games developer Electronic Arts used a virtual event called EA Play Live to
provide an early preview of two of the sporting blockbusters of the next year,
namely FIFA 21 and Madden NFL 21 for PS5. To add to the anticipation, anyone
buying those games for the PS4 now will receive a free upgrade to the PS5
version when they are released.
Meanwhile, for
those needing an update, he PS5 is powered by:
- The chip: an AMD Zen 2 CPU. The
PS4 also used AMD silicon, so it’s not too much of a change. Intel would have
been the default choice if it had an equivalent product.
- Graphics card: AMD RDNA 2 GPU,
probably chosen because it interfaces very well with the AMD CPU. AMD GPUs were
also used in the PS4, so it seems Sony is happy with AMD as a bleeding-edge
vendor.
- Memory: 16GB of GDDR6, double
that of the PS4’s 8GB GDDR5. It increases bandwidth and performance while
reducing power consumption.
- Storage: a custom-made Sony 825GB
Solid State Drive (SDD), said to be one of the fastest in the world, as opposed
to the PS4’s 1 Terabyte hard drive (HDD). Compared to the PS4’s load time of 20
seconds per 1GB, the PS5 can load 2GB in 0.27 seconds. The bandwidth of its SSD
is 5GB/sec, a huge improvement over the PS4’s at 50-100MB/sec, or 0.05-0.1GB/s.
The last one does raise
the question, though: will one have less storage for games with the PS5’s 825GB
SSD compared to the PS4’s 1TB HDD? Can smaller really be better? Game
developers think so.
“The PlayStation 5’s storage overhaul isn’t merely about making
storage faster – it may quite literally be game-changing,” says Ian Turner,
lead game developer at Johannesburg-based Coven Studios. “Game designers have
had to jump through all sorts of hoops to make games load faster, so consumers
don’t wait around on loading screens. One of those hoops is called spooling:
where a game’s level is stored in a container so it can be unpacked quickly.
“This means some games may have the same object stored in about 50
places on the drive, and when that happens with thousands of objects, that
makes games huge. With Sony’s new SSD storage, games can read instantaneously
from an asset library instead of chunks, which will make games dramatically
smaller.”
This also allows for larger visual textures to be used, which
compliments Sony’s 8K feature at 120 frames per second, and therefore enhances
the fidelity of the gameplay.
Todd Sweeney, CEO
of Epic Games, told The Verge. “The storage architecture on the PS5 is far
ahead of anything you can buy on anything on PC for any amount of money right
now. It’s going to help drive future PCs. They’re going to see this thing ship
and say, ‘Oh wow, SSDs are going to need to catch up with this’.”
- Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee
Read about the titles that have been announced for the PS5 on the next page.
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