Predictions For Sonys Big PS5 Reveal And Why Sony Will Have To Mimic Microsoft – Forbes

Posted: June 1, 2020 at 3:44 am

Sony Will Reveal Additional PS5 Details On June 4.

Microsoft has made numerous disclosures regarding the upcoming Xbox Series X over the last few months, while Sony has been much more conservative about its messaging as it relates to the next-gen PlayStation 5. Sony, however, recently announced that it will be holding an event on June 4 @ 1:00PM (PDT) to reveal additional PS5 details and what it is calling The Future of Gaming. There will likely be many revelations this coming week, but few big surprises.

Fortunately for all gamers, Sony and Microsoft went with a much more PC-like approach with their respective console hardware configurations. The previous-gen Xbox One and PS4, and upcoming Xbox Series X and PS5, are all powered by semi-custom AMD chips, that were born from AMDs core PC CPU and GPU technologies. That move made it much easier for game and applications developers to produce their wares, since the underlying architectures for all of those consoles and the PC are so similar. There are significant differences between the consoles respective development kits, of course, but at their foundations they are all powered by similar AMD x86 processors and Radeon Graphics.

Sony probably knew beforehand that Microsoft was going to have the upper-hand this generation in terms of compute performance, and tailored its PS5 messaging up to this point to the upcoming game consoles strengths. Im not going to list the reported speeds and feeds for the Xbox Series X or PS5, because they can be tweaked right up until the last minute as both companies and partner AMD learn more about and further optimize the voltage and frequency curves for the semi-custom chips at playhere. If, however, current information holds true, Microsofts Xbox Series X will technically offer higher performance its CPU cores use a similar architecture (AMDs Zen 2), but are clocked higher, and its GPU will reportedly offer approximately 17% more compute performance.

The PS5's Wireless DualSense Controller

There has been lots of chatter regarding the Solid State Drive (SSD) Sony will be employing in the PS5 and Sony themselves have talked about the new DualSense wireless controllers and 3D Audio Technology capabilities of the PS5. And these are the areas Sony will likely focus on come this Thursdays event. The rest of the hardware-centric news, however, will likely be ripped from the PCs and Microsofts playbook. Let me explain...

One of the great things about the PC as a gaming platform is that it can cater to an extremely diverse array of gamers. If youre on a tight budget, lower-end, less-expensive hardware can be used, but hardcore-gamers with fat wallets can opt for ultra-powerful CPUs, GPUs, gobs of memory, and fast solid-state storage. But both a budget-build and world-class gaming PC can technically run the same games theyll just do it at differing image quality and performance levels. And thats exactly what will be happening with the next-generation consoles. Both the Xbox Series X and PS5 will be outfitted with much faster CPUs, GPUs, memory, and storage than their predecessors, while maintaining backward compatibility, so many existing games will likely be able to run with increased IQ and framerates and offer faster load times and smoother overall operation, thanks to the faster, lower-latency storage and increased memory capacity. So much of Sonys messaging as it relates to processor and GPU performance, and backward compatibility, is going to sound just like Microsofts.

In addition to seeing the final hardware design and potentially learning about some exclusive launch titles, well probably learn that the SSD in the PS5 offers significantly higher throughput than the standard NVMe in the Xbox Series X (Sonys target puts the drive around ~5.5GB/s). With a fast enough SSD in terms of both latency and bandwidth its possible that load times on the PS5 will be exceptionally fast, and streaming in new data in vast game worlds will be smooth and seamless, with no random pauses, jitters, and cut-scenes to mask loading.

As for the Tempest 3D Audio Technology, it will most likely be a derivative of or at the very least similar to AMDs TrueAudio Next ray-traced audio. TrueAudio Next is an AMD technology that allows for real-time, dynamic, physics-based audio rendering, enabled by the multi-threaded compute capabilities of the GPU.The video above will give you a sense how the technology works. But Sonys head-related transfer function (HRTF) will step things up a few nothces. Im eager to try this feature out with quality headphones or a surround-sound setup with a PS5, because it could provide a monumental leap in immersion. Audio doesnt often get the attention it should in games.

Ultimately, the games are what will decide who wins the next console war. To date, Microsoft has arguably had the better marketing and messaging. Sonys got momentum from the previous-gen on its side, though, and despite the Xbox Series Xs potential performance advantages, the PS5 is still going to be a major leap forward versus its predecessor. As a long-time proponent of the PC, Im just happy both companies stuck with PC-like approaches for their upcoming game consoles, because it makes porting games between the platforms significantly easier, which is a good thing for all gamers.

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Predictions For Sonys Big PS5 Reveal And Why Sony Will Have To Mimic Microsoft - Forbes