Over the past couple of months we have done a couple of videos and articles on the upcoming PS5 from Sony.
A couple of weeks ago we did a video and article surrounding the PS5 Controller and everything we knew about it, as there had been quite a few leaks regarding it. Then a couple of weeks before that we did a massive video and article covering an exclusive picture that we received of the PS5 developers kit. This was a never seen before image and it basically showing the PS5 that we had seen in previous patents, and we actually got picked up by quite a few tech website thanks to this.
But what will we be covering in this video and article? Well, we have a ton of major updates to cover, from insane spec updates, to some more controller leaks and a direct comparison between the PS5 and Xbox 2. So get those snacks ready and here’s the latest updates on the PS5!
SPECS
The PS5 will have some truly next generation graphics, 4K at up to 120fps and even 8K at 30fps, these have both been officially confirmed by Sony so they’re not even leaks anymore.
But one of the main upgrades to the PS5, and this is something that some of you might be familiar with would be the HDD. You see, rather than the PS5 using a traditional HDD, like we’ve had in pretty much all modern consoles, both the PS5 and the Xbox 2 will be using SSD’s (Solid State Drives). This is very similar to what you find in modern laptops as SSD’s are up to 10 times faster than HDD’s, offering speeds of around 500MB/s from the standard 50MB/s that a HDD offers.
NVMe or PCIe flash storages are usually found soldered to the motherboard as seen in the image above
However, the PS5 will be using something even more powerful than a SATA based SSD. Sony did say that they’ve developed a custom storage option that would offer speeds of up to 19 times higher of what the HDD inside the PS4 could achieve. So 19 times 50 is 950MB/s which is pretty much in the territory of NVMe and PCIe based Flash Storage. These are flash modules that are soldered onto the motherboard, that offer much much higher speeds that what a SATA based SSD would be able to offer, which is always limited to between 500 and 550MB/s. Now if you do get a high end laptop that’s aimed at creatives today, such as a Dell XPS or the MacBook Pro, these have read and write speeds of well over 2GB/s. So while the PS5 won’t have speeds as high as a high end laptop’s storage has, it will still be much faster than the HDD inside the PS4 was.
Also, Sony did showcase a demo of Spiderman running on the PS5, and the entire game loaded in just 0.8 seconds! The PS4 Pro was still extremely fast and it only took just over 8 seconds to load the game, but the PS5 took 10 times less than that, and also keep in mind that this game was not optimised fully and not even developed with the PS5 in mind.
Ok, so this is a standard mid-range laptop NVMe flash module that you can find in any laptop, right? Well, not really. You see, Mark Cerny, the lead system architect for both the PS4 and the PS5, did say that the RAW bandwidth of the PS5’s SSD is higher than of any other SSD’s on the market right now. But what benefits would an SSD bring to the PS5, other than just loading the games really fast? Well, in the Spider-Man demo for example, Sony also showed us the maximum speed that Spidey can swing on webs at, and on the PS4 Pro, once you hit a certain speed the system cannot stream the data fast enough from the HDD and therefore the game freezes and Spidey cannot swing any faster. Then with the PS5, they stared off at the same speeds as before, but everything was much smoother. Then when the speeds are increased, everything is remains perfectly fluid and Spidey can swing insanely fast! Imagine how amazing racing games will be on the PS5 thanks to this new storage. This is huge!
So you see, it’s not just that games will load faster, it’s also the experience inside of a game that would be dramatically improved. And we’ve actually had a few big leaks in terms of the PS5’s SSD recently.
An Infographic from Samsung’s event showing system boot and game launch speeds (Source: TechTastic)
According to TechTastic, Samsung had a presentation in Tokyo where they showcased their upcoming SSD for game consoles in 2020, ‘SSD era in games console 2020’, that’s what it was called. And what they showed was how improved the system boot and the game load times were. For example, with the standard HDD it would take a game console around 49 seconds to boot, and with a standard SSD it would take them around 29 seconds. However, their upcoming Optimised NVMe modules can boot the system in less than half of that, around 10 seconds. Then when it comes to game launch speeds a HDD took 38 seconds to load compared to 13 seconds with an SSD and then less than 6 seconds with the new Optimized NVMe drives. Monster Hunter was the game that these tests were being done with, just so you know.
And Mark Cerny did actually say in his interview with the Wired that the PS5 will indeed come with optimised flash storage, rather than standard modules that laptops use. So it makes a lot of sense for Sony to use Samsung’s brand new “Optimised NVMe” modules in the PS5, which means that this will be a proprietary module, specifically designed for the PS5, rather than something that you would be able to find in stores. However, there is a pretty big issue here. You see, if all the games are optimised to work with Sony’s new flash module, it won’t be cheap to manufacture by any means. I mean if you look at NVMe modules today, a 1TB Samsung made M.2 drive costs around 150-300 pounds in the UK, which is more than half of what the PS5 will cost.
PSErebus’s tweet regarding the release date and price of the PS5
Speaking of this, twitter leakster PSErebus who’s had a pretty good track record in the past when it comes the accuracy of his leaks posted that the PS5 will be launching on November the 20th 2020, at a price of $500 which is actually the exact same price that the Xbox One X costs. Considering how powerful the PS5 will be, even when compared to the Xbox One X, I would say that $500 is an outstanding price. It’s less than a mid-range smartphone, and this is a console that will last you for 5-7 years, compared to a smartphone that most people change every 2 years or so.
Ok, so going back to the SSD. I was saying that one issue is the high cost of the SSD itself as the PS5 is very likely to ship with a 1TB NVMe flash module. However games today have become massive and most people will need an external drive, which are supported on the PS4 and will most likely still be supported on the PS5. So the question here is, if you need more storage and you plug in an external HDD, wouldn’t this impact the games heavily, since that storage would be significantly slower than the internal storage? Keep in mind that all games will be made to take full advantage of the extremely fast internal storage.
Well, one solution to this is that Sony could indeed limit the use of external SSD’s only and drop HDD support entirely, but even those, only reach 500MB/s or so. Therefore you would need something like an external m.2 module in order to even reach speeds close to the internal module and those ones pretty expensive. However, I do have some good news here, there have been reports that Sony is planning on developing the flash module as a modular system, so that you can easily swap it out for a higher capacity modules, when you need to.
This means that Sony will very likely sell these modules alongside the PS5. They will be more expensive than what an entry level m.2 drive will cost, but they should be perfectly compatible with the PS5, and games will still make full use of those modules as well. So, if at some point in time you want to upgrade the storage to maybe 4TB you should be able to easily do that by buying one of these modules. Also, it’s very safe to assume that the PS5 will also let you connect these modules externally, so that you can also expand your internal storage.
Renders of PS5 Cartridge concept by LetsGoDigital
A brand new Sony patent uncovered by LetsGoDigital shows what looks to be a cartridge. Maybe the module 1st party SSD module that you would use to expand your PS5’s storage? Well that’s what it looked to be, and LetsGoDigital even made some renders of it, but unfortunately it turns out that its actually just a cartridge for a completely different Sony product a kids tablet/toy that you use to control some cars.
Anyway, the point is that this is completely unrelated to the PS5 unfortunately. However, like I said before, it is still very likely that Sony will indeed offer SSD modules themselves, that will extend your internal/external storage on the PS5.
Now, in case you’re worried about the storage or the price of these expansion modules, I do have some good news. Mark Cerny did say in his interview with Wired that the PS5 will support a new way of installing and playing games. You would now be able to select if you want just install the Campaign of a game, or just the Multiplayer and you can even delete parts of a game that you’ve already played and no longer wish to play. In Call of Duty Modern Warfare for example, you would be able to uninstall the Campaign right after you’ve finished it and only then install the multiplayer, which would save you around 50GB or so.
Also, Mark Cerny did say that because of how slow the HDD was on the PS4, some developers had to make copies of the game textures multiple times so that they can load them simultaneously, since it was faster to load them this way. However, this resulted in a lot of space being wasted.
So not only will the PS5 games occupy way less storage, but parts of the games will be able to be uninstalled as we wish, which means even more free space.
CONTROLLER
Now, something else that we’ve had recently in terms of the PS5 leaks, are some updates on the PS5 controller.
This is something that I’ve covered extensively in our last PS5 video and article. In that one I talked about some leaked PS5 development kit controller photos and showed the PS5 controller with the built-in display that replaced the touchpad. We also got the options and share buttons inverted, so they were horizontal rather than vertical. We also had microphones or dual speakers on each side of the screen and also a very weird shape that had the bottom portion of the controller indented which from the looks of it would feel very uncomfortable, but it might actually be the opposite, when holding this in person.
A design comparison between the new PS5 Controller patent (Left), the Nintendo Switch Controller (Middle) and Xbox controller (Right)
Then just last week, we had a new patent filing by Sony on what appears to be a new controller that looks very similar to the PS4 one. We have a shape that now matches the Xbox and Nintendo Switch Pro controller a bit more, which were known to be the most comfortable gaming controllers on the market, so that‘s great to see.
The TouchPad is quite a bit larger than the one we had on the PS4 controller. Also it doesn’t curve anymore but instead it’s now completely flat, which is interesting because you know what else is flat? Touchscreens. I mean yes, there are curved touchscreens and displays but those are very expensive to manufacture. So I believe that because of how this patent looks and because of the leaked PS5 controller dev kit images that we’ve seen before, the PS5 controller will indeed replace the touchpad with a full touchscreen display. And we would be able to use this in games and most importantly see the chat and friends menu. This would be great because if you want to type a message on the PS4, you either have to use the joystick, which will take you a year to type a single sentence, or you’ll have to use your smartphone which isn’t as convenient since you need to connect it to your PS4 first.
Aside from this we still seem to have 2 ports that both look to be 3.5mm headphone jacks, and we are getting a USB C port for charging, Mark Cerny did confirm that, we cannot really tell if that’s the black spot right below the headphone jack or if that’s on the back where it used to be on the PS4 controller.
The weird hole on the controller that, as of now, we are unsure what it is for
The speaker is in the exact same place, the options and share buttons are also in the same place and in the same orientation. So really, aside from the shape, USB C and the screen, the only thing that looks changed to me is that weird hole right below the PlayStation button.
When Mark Cerny had his October interview with Peter Rubin from the Wired, Mark did actually hand Peter a PS5 controller. He wasn’t allowed to share any photos or videos of it, but this is what Peter had to say: “Cerny hands me a prototype of the next-gen controller, an unlabelled matte-black doohickey that looks an awful lot like the PS4’s Dualshock 4. After all, there’s a little hole on it, and a recently published patent points to Sony developing a voice-driven AI assistant for the PlayStation.”
If you want to look at the patent that Peter was referring to you can see it here, but from the sounds of it, the one that we’ve seen in the patent sounds like exactly the controller that Peter was given by Cerny. And that mysterious hole would then indeed be for the microphone which would be used for Sony brand new AI assistant.
So there you have it, the latest updates on the PS5. What do you think so far? Are you going to buy one?