Sony confirms PlayStation 5 name, release date, ray tracing, and new controller features

[midian182]

Highly anticipated: While Sony has revealed quite a few details about its next-generation console, it hadn’t confirmed the machine’s name or release date—until now. As expected, the company is keeping with tradition by calling it the PlayStation 5, and it will be released in time for “holidays 2020.”

In addition to confirming those details, Sony wrote about the new controller that will ship with the PS5. It will see the long-used rumble technology replaced with haptic feedback to allow a “greater range of feedback.”

The company says not only will users be able to feel the difference between running into a wall in a racing game and performing a tackle on a football field, but they’ll also get a sense of textures when running through grass or moving through mud.

Additionally, the new controller comes with adaptive triggers incorporated into the L2/R2 trigger buttons. Devs will able to “program the resistance of the triggers,” so users can feel the draw of a bow or when driving through rough terrain. The controllers will also be charged using USB Type-C.

More PS5 news arrived via a Wired interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan. He said the console will support ray tracing, and not through a software-level fix, but in the GPU hardware.

Additionally, Ryan confirmed the console would use a solid-state drive, and games will come on 100GB disks. The optical drive, meanwhile, doubles as a 4K Bluray player. Additionally, game installation will be configurable, which means you might be able to install only a game’s single-player campaign, multiplayer element, etc., instead of the whole thing, should you wish.

Back in August, we saw a Sony patent that’s expected to resemble the PS5. We’ve also heard about its 120Hz/4K support and backward compatibility.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/82245-sony-confirms-playstation-5-name-release-date-ray.html

 

[rrwards]

As long as they will let me install it to the drive and then also play it when that disc isn't in the system, I'd call it an upgrade. I'll let them figure out the DRM on that, but its pretty irritating to buy a new game, wait for it to install to the drive, download and install new updates, and then still not be able to play it if I popped a Bluray in for a movie.

 

[Skjorn]

Configurable installs will be a must if discs are going to be 100GB.

Wonder if the SSD would still be using SATA or something else. I'd imagine SATA III for compatibility.

 

[kira setsu]

I hope they shorten the pulls on those triggers, the ps4 pad is a crampfest with certain games if you have large hands.

 

[Reallyhow]

Why on earth would they use a SATA SSD?

The AMD chipset is going to support NVMe drives, and they're like 5x faster...

 

[Scshadow]

Well, my best guess is US$600. I probably won't be an early adopter.

 

[Vulcanproject]

Configurable installs will be a must if discs are going to be 100GB.

I would hope for a faster drive. PS4 has a 6x bluray drive, seven years after that machine it should be cheap enough to bang a faster drive in there. 10x drives are pretty much average.

Ray tracing will surely be extremely limited in scope, and also AMD's first generation implementation.

I'm highly skeptical of hardware ray tracing in a budget console. Yes, even if it's $600 it's a budget games machine. When you consider existing GPUs like the 2080Ti are likely much much more powerful already than whatever AMD have managed to cook up for this console a whole year from now.

 

[Skjorn]

Why on earth would they use a SATA SSD?

The AMD chipset is going to support NVMe drives, and they're like 5x faster...

Cheaper. People could replace it cheaper too. It is a console after all. PS4 used SATA II well after SATA III had been out.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Wonder if the SSD would still be using SATA or something else. I'd imagine SATA III for compatibility.

Cerny has already said read speeds above 3500 MB/s, which rules out SATA. It's almost certainly NVMe.

Sony and Microsoft are NOT cutting corners on hardware this generation like last. Last was a atypical fluke, the result of a global recession coupled with ***** analysts that said iPads were going to kill gaming consoles, so nobody wanted to lose money on hardware. PS4 just hit a record 90M units sold, so Sony has no question as to whether or not gamers will show up this time, and is spending on hardware accordingly.

 

[Lounds]

I've got a feeling if there's an NVMe drive it'll be using it as a form of game caching. So on loading up the game from disc it loads the core files onto a NVMe drive. I've also wondered if they'll have a form of hard drive or Sata SSD for main Storage, possibly use AMD's StoreMI.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Nvme cache seems much more plausible than for the total storage solution.

I'm waiting to build a new pc until after these next gen consoles launch. Would hate to build now and have the consoles be within a small margin of the performance of what I plan to spend at least 1500-2k for.

 

[Soulburn74]

So "holidays 2020" suffices as a confirmed release date? A bit clickbaitish much?

 

[Mr Majestyk]

For the non US citizens is 2020 Holidays around the July time frame?

 

[Scshadow]

So "holidays 2020" suffices as a confirmed release date? A bit clickbaitish much?

Some of these writers over here are real amateurs. I doubt its so much as clickbait as it is poor command over the English Language. Having a confirmed release schedule is still quite nice.

For the non US citizens is 2020 Holidays around the July time frame?

Officially? I don't know. But I consider holidays to be October, November, December for Halloween, thanksgiving and Christmas. I think the key being Christmas as its the large consumer goods event. When I hear Holiday 2020, I read plz buy this product for Christmas.

 

[neeyik]

“Holiday 2020” was the exact phrase used by Sony; they provided no further clarification.

An Update on Next-Gen: PlayStation 5 Launches Holiday 2020

Featuring a new controller with haptic technology and adaptive triggers.

blog.us.playstation.com

 

[Ravey]

And I only just bought a PS4 a few months ago .....

 

[OptimumSlinky]

And I only just bought a PS4 a few months ago .....

PS4 has been out since 2013, so that's really on you...

 

[Teko03]

Should we take this ray tracing claim with a grain of salt? Considering at the moment a $1,000+ RTX 2080 Ti is the only card capable of ray tracing without droppping below 60 fps.

 

[CommonSense]

Should we take this ray tracing claim with a grain of salt? Considering at the moment a $1,000+ RTX 2080 Ti is the only card capable of ray tracing without droppping below 60 fps.

One thing to keep in mind here is that the consoles work very differently than PCs. On a PC you render the game to whatever resolution your monitor is. So if you are doing 2k or 4k gaming it becomes quite difficult to make most new games perform admirably. The console will render things at 720p / 900p / 1080p and then upscale to the desired resolution. With that being the case it's easier to maintain framerates because it isn't being rendered at high resolutions. Now we just have to hope the upscalling has also improved and we should see some good graphics / gameplay as a final result.

 

[neeyik]

Consoles and PCs actually render graphics in exactly the same way, it's just that upscaling isn't commonly employed or made available in PC games.

The ray tracing claim is almost certainly a solid one, as the application of ray tracing effects and the resultant performance hit is heavily dependent on the implementation of the effects. Wccftech did some performance testing on RTX cards, with various RT settings and resolutions:

CONTROL PC Performance Explored - All In On RTX

Keith firmly believes that Control is best played and enjoyed on PC with all of the ray trancing NVIDIA features enabled.

wccftech.com

If you look at the 2060 Super results, it does pretty well with RT High + DLSS at 1080p; it's not overly shabby at 1440p. Now although we have no real idea on what the exact GPU specification that's going to be used in the PS5, we do know it will be a custom Navi chip and the likes of the Navi 10 holds up very well against the likes of the 2060 Super, et al. So if AMD are going to implement specific hardware units for accelerating the bounding volume hierarchy calculations, then real time ray tracing will be definitely usable; if such calculations are going to remain solely as compute shaders, then the use of RT will need to be more discrete.

 

[Gus Fring]

Why on earth would they use a SATA SSD?

The AMD chipset is going to support NVMe drives, and they're like 5x faster...

They might use nvme for space saving and in a PC ,some seq reads CAN be 5x faster, but in reality its secs shaved rather than being blown away. A more interesting thing would be for them to use optane memory, but thats INTEL TECH and still expensive.
Ugly beast imo .

 

[hahahanoobs]

Wonder if the SSD would still be using SATA or something else. I'd imagine SATA III for compatibility.

SATA for cost/performance.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Why on earth would they use a SATA SSD?

The AMD chipset is going to support NVMe drives, and they're like 5x faster...

AMD and Intel already currently support NVMe drives. I think you mean PCIe 4 nVME drives and those would be overkill for a ~$500 console.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Should we take this ray tracing claim with a grain of salt? Considering at the moment a $1,000+ RTX 2080 Ti is the only card capable of ray tracing without droppping below 60 fps.

It's always good to take things with a grain of salt, but some things to keep in mind:
1. Turing is a compute architecture. The tensor cores and RT cores are designed more for Pixar's rendering needs than gaming, which is why the performance hit is so staggering when applied to gaming. As usual, gamers get the hand-me down extras repackaged. RDNA was designed by AMD with assistance from Sony for gaming. That doesn't necessarily mean "magic performance gains" but it does mean that any ray-tracing solution that AMD/Sony have put together is going to be tailored to the needs of gaming first as opposed to what nVidia did with Turing (and what AMD did we Vega, which was also a compute architecture repurposed for gaming).
2. The RTX 2080 Ti is only $1,100 because AMD has nothing to compete with it. It's a $599 card selling for double because nVidia can. It's not and never has been worth $1,000.