What To Expect From Sony's Next-Gen PlayStation (wired.com)

Daetrin writes: Sony is unwilling to confirm "Playstation 5" as the name, but their next console is "no mere upgrade" according to a report from Wired, which cites Sony executives -- who spoke on the record:

"PlayStation's next-generation console ticks all those boxes, starting with an AMD chip at the heart of the device. (Warning: some alphabet soup follows.) The CPU is based on the third generation of AMD's Ryzen line and contains eight cores of the company's new 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture. The GPU, a custom variant of Radeon's Navi family, will support ray tracing, a technique that models the travel of light to simulate complex interactions in 3D environments. While ray tracing is a staple of Hollywood visual effects and is beginning to worm its way into $10,000 high-end processors, no game console has been able to manage it. Yet."

The console will also have a solid-state drive and is currently planned to be backward-compatible with both PS4 games and PSVR.

Comments

Re:What to ACTUALLY expect is

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing Ps3 to Ps5, you think there's consistency there? Then you have the whims of developers on top of that. Then you still have bugs and performance issues, frame stuttering even on your "consistent brand"

PC's are modular and not actively trying to tie your hands, that's the real difference. Sony doesn't want you using their box for anything that doesn't make them money, and if you try, they'll brick you.

Won't Matter If they Keep Up "Lite Models"

[DatbeDank]

The whole point of buying a video game console was to not have to worry about different "tiers" of quality and performance like you have to with PCs.

With the recent generation pulling this "PS4/Xbox-Lite" crap where games run at worse performance on the cheaper consoles, it makes me wonder why should I even purchase a console when a desktop will be infinitely better in terms of cost, performance, and longevity? That ignores the fact that I could easily set on up to run in the living room.

Consoles nowadays nothing more than overpriced specialized computers for the living room, of which there are many free options available for PCs if I so desire to go that route.

Poisoned the well.

[WolfgangVL]

The video gaming industry is the biggest dog and pony show around. Every few years another console generation comes around, and the 'retro' genre grows.

At this point, you cannot even buy a full AAA game outright on launch-day. You are instead offered a framework of minimal features, and are expected to pay again a few more times for 'expansions' and 'DLC', which are just code for 'the rest of the game'. Let's not forget loot-boxes, micro-transactions, GB scale day 1 updates, data harvesting stores, always online requirements, and the death of the second-hand market.

All of this despite the truly massive library of 'retro' games with no such shenanigans for pennies on the dollar. The big players have to make big PR noise every few years before the next generation develops an interest in what the older gamers are playing, and to keep the older gamers from realizing they already have more than they can play in a single lifetime.

I used to spend a sizable portion of my income on gaming, and it used to be worth it. Before that, my childhood was fixing and playing the rich kids broken consoles and computers. I grew into a respectable engineer on the skills I earned doing that, but now I buy maybe 1-2 games a year.

Had I played my Fender instead, I'd be fucking a rockstar. Today they learn those fucking obnoxious dance moves, and how to talk shit like a racist-sailor-criminal.