For all of you who don’t have hours to read the ins and outs of Sony’s new console the PlayStation 5, I’ve compiled a brief overview of the announcements.
The new console has been announced for launch Holiday 2020 which will have it launching directly alongside Microsoft’s new console the Xbox Series X. The PS5 will be available in two models at launch, a version with a 4k Blu Ray Disk Drive and a digital only model. No price has been officially announced yet, but estimates would put the launch price at around £450 which is significantly pricier that the PS4 on launch. The reason for the high price is the technology packed inside the new console including the 825GB SSD for faster loading times and the AMD GPU and CPU which will support ray tracing.
The console will come with a new version of the DualShock controller called the DualSense which will deliver haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and a built-in microphone. As well as the console a range of new accessories will also be launching, including the Pulse 3D wireless headset – delivering 3D sound and background noise cancellation. A new HD camera capable of capturing 4k video, a media remote and a DualSense charging station that can charge two controllers at once.
The console has been confirmed to be backwards compatible with PS4 games and there are rumours that it may even be able to emulated earlier PS3, PS2 and possibly even PS1 games with on the fly remastering but this is just a rumour due to a registered Sony patent and many of those don’t make it as far as practical application. Sony has confirmed that the PSVR will continue to be supported beyond the launch of the PS5 and there are hint, again through patents, that there could be a new PSVR unit in the works, which would be a wireless version running on a rechargeable battery.
Along with the hardware announcements came a list of new games including Resident Evil 5, Gran Turismo 7, Horizon: Forbidden West, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and many more. If you have an hour spare then you can watch the full online announcement which includes trailers of all the announced games here. Now all that’s left is to wait for the pre-orders.
