PlayStation 5

Nintendo Switch Pro – The PS5 & Xbox Series X Killer?

INTRO

As most of you probably know, 2020 is the year of..well..self-isolation but also the year of new Games Consoles. We got the last major release back in 2013, with the PS4 and the Xbox One, and now we’re waiting on two big releases in the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Then, we have Nintendo as the third player in this console war.

Some of you might say that Nintendo’s not really a player because, performance wise, the Nintendo Switch is far behind the PS4 and the Xbox One, not even to mention the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X. While that is indeed true, you can not argue with the fact that the Switch has now outsold the Xbox One, making the Switch the second best selling Console out right now, right after the PS4. 

The demand is definitely there and the interest from the hardcore & casual gaming community is also there. The Switch came out in 2017, three years ago, so while it is still technically in the middle of its’ life-cycle, it is significantly underpowered when compared to even the PS4 & Xbox One. We’ve seen a lot of leaks that Nintendo is working on a Nintendo Switch Pro, so here is everything we know about it and also why I think this could just be the surprise contender to the PS5 and the Xbox Series X.

The Original Switch

We’ll be honest, when the Nintendo Switch came out, we weren’t fans at all. We did like the idea of having a console that can be used in so many ways, from hand-held to table-top to having it connected to a TV, but we were not a fan of how underpowered it was.

The original Switch was truly unique, but it took some getting used to.

The original Switch was truly unique, but it took some getting used to.

We kept comparing the Graphics on the Switch to the PS4 and the Xbox One in third party games, but there was just no comparison. Whilst other games such as Fortnite and Witcher 3 are playable on the Switch, they look significantly worse than on the PS4 and the Xbox One. But then, in late 2019, Apple launched Apple Arcade. I signed up for the free trial on my iPad and when I was on the road and travelling, I gave it a shot. It was pretty good but it was heavily lacking any big Triple-A titles. Which made me think, what if I actually gave the Switch a try? 

So, I bought my first Switch in late 2019, less than six months ago, and I simply fell in love with it! It felt amazing in the hand, the games were just unbelievable, playing Triple-A games on the go is just something that you cannot do on anything else right now. This is unless you count Game-Streaming but unfortunately, when you’re traveling, the connection is very poor so it’s not really doable.

But what sold me right away were the first party games such as: Link’s Awakening, Pokémon Sword, Super Mario Odyssey, Animal Crossing and others. These are some of the best games that I’ve ever played and the fact that I could play these on the go, as well as on my TV, on the same device was absolutely outstanding. The Switch has actually now become my favourite console ever. Also, we’ve seen a lot of leaks & rumors on Nintendo’s upcoming Switch 2, or Switch Pro, Console.

A Mid-Cycle Upgrade

Nintendo has actually released two new Consoles in 2019. One of them was a newer model of the original Switch, with significantly improved battery life. The other was the Nintendo Switch Lite, a brand new Switch, which was specifically designed for hand-held play and does not support TV output. 

A console built purely for hand-held gaming, that supports AAA Titles. The Switch Lite was released in 2019.

A console built purely for hand-held gaming, that supports AAA Titles. The Switch Lite was released in 2019.

It’s pretty safe to assume that the next Switch would have some resemblance to the Switch Lite, in terms of its design. This is how we modelled our very own ZONEofTECH concept of the Nintendo Switch Pro.  We thinned out the Bezels considerably to the point where they’re even thinner than on the Switch Lite. The Switch Lite already had much thinner Bezels, when compared to the original Switch. We modelled ours with a 7.3” Display, up from the current 6.2” panel, but kept the exact same Form Factor with the same thickness, height and width, just with a larger Display. The current Switch has a plastic Display which is very easily scratched. It’s an LCD Display but the Colour Reproduction is quite poor, so we’ve equipped ours with an OLED panel, a glass panel which would be perfectly suitable for this Switch Pro.

The reason why this might be called a Switch Pro, rather than a Switch 2, is because rather than this being the next generation Switch, it will be a spec bump to the current model, similar to what Sony and Microsoft have done with the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X. It will have a higher price point, but it will offer more premium features that the current Switch isn’t able to, such as higher Frame-Rates and especially a higher Resolution for games.

We have seen reports that Nintendo is finally considering releasing a Switch with 4K output support, something that the PS4 Pro introduced back in 2016. This also implies that we would very likely get a bump in handheld Resolution, from 720p to at least 1080p. Even with a more powerful chipset, which we’ll cover in just a second, it would be quite difficult for the Switch to be able to do 4K gaming, considering that it also needs to be a hand-held Console. And while the hand-held output would still just be 1080p, the Switch would require significantly more power when docked, in order to be able to do 4K.

If Nintendo were to add something like a Thunderbolt Port and a dedicated GPU in the dock itself, this would easily solve all of the performance related issues. This way, you can still have a very good hand-held experience in 1080p, but then also get full 4K the moment you dock the console in. At the moment, on the current Switch, aside from a bump in Resolution from 720p to 1080p, there’s isn’t really that much that you’re getting by docking the console. A dedicated GPU in the dock itself would solve this issue.

Specifications

Speaking of specs, we have seen reports that Nintendo and Nvidia are working together in order to develop the new CPU & GPU for the next generation Switch. As you probably know, the current Switches both use Nvidia’s Tegra X1 chip, an extremely weak SoC (System on a Chip) that contains both the CPU and the GPU. It was developed in 2015, five years ago, originally for the Nvidia Shield TV Smartbox, which in 2019 got upgraded to the new TegraX1+ Chip.

Will a potential Switch Pro get more current, high-end hardware?

Will a potential Switch Pro get more current, high-end hardware?

The X1+ is about 25% more powerful than the original X1 from 2015, but even a 25% bump in performance would be extremely disappointing for the next Switch. This is the Processor that both the 2019 Switch and the 2019 Switch Lite should have included but instead, we just got a more power efficient version of the original X1. This makes us think that maybe ,and hopefully, Nintendo and Nvidia are indeed planning a very big performance upgrade for the next Switch, with an SoC designed specifically for the Switch. 

Essentially, when the Switch was launched, Nintendo didn’t know how well it was going to sell, especially after the disaster that was the Wii U. So, instead of creating a Custom Chip, they just repurposed the best Mobile Processor that Nvidia had, which at that time was the two year old Tegra X1. But, considering how well the Switch has done in terms of sales, it is extremely likely that the reports stating that Nintendo and Nvidia are working together on as Custom Chipset are indeed correct. Japanese website ‘Gamepeida’ reports that the RAM would now be doubled to 8GB, compared to the 4GB we have now and the Storage will also be bumped to 128GB, up from the current 32GB. We don’t think the Storage was ever an issue, as you can indeed expand that via a microSD card, but you couldn’t really do anything about the Display or the performance. 

A new report from ‘DigitTimes’ claims that the Switch Pro would enter mass production in Q1 2020, but this is likely not the case anymore, given the recent outbreak throughout the world. Also, Nintendo themselves have indeed confirmed that there will be no new Nintendo Console in 2020. So, this Switch Pro would very likely release in early 2021, rather than 2020. This is mostly because it won’t be able to compete with the PS5 and Xbox Series X, at least when it comes to the performance.

Another report claims that Nvidia is working with Nintendo, on developing a new SoC on their new Volta architecture. But even Volta is quite old as it was released in 2017, it was replaced by Turing which itself will soon be replaced by Ampere. We wouldn’t be surprised if Nvidia ends up using an older architecture again, but given the success of the Switch, it would make more sense to design something that is at least set in the present, when it comes to raw power.  Nintendo also showed us the trailer for ‘Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2’, but they haven’t said anything about a potential release date. I would expect ‘Breath of the Wild 2’ to launch at the same time as this new Switch, this way they can promote the capabilities of the new Console whilst also promoting the game itself.

Backwards Compatibility, Remote Play & Design

Speaking of games, Backwards Compatibility has been reported to be happening numerous times and I wouldn’t really expect otherwise.  The PS5 and the Xbox Series X will both support current generation games, while the Xbox will go as far as supporting Xbox 360 and even original Xbox games. Not supporting Nintendo Switch games, especially considering that this will be a Switch Pro, rather than a Switch 2, is looking extremely unlikely.

This wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo & Sony have teamed-up. (Image: Archyde)

This wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo & Sony have teamed-up. (Image: Archyde)

Now something interesting that we were not expecting to see, is that Sony was surveying their users on Remote Play support for the Nintendo Switch. I don’t think any reasonable person would say no to this, so it might be the case that by the end of 2020, we could start seeing Remote Play support on the current Switch Consoles. This isn’t really a next-gen Switch feature, but it is something that we did want to mention.

One of our complaints with the original Switch was that it was quite uncomfortable to use in hand-held for long periods of time. This was indeed fixed with the Switch Lite, but it does remain an issue on the regular Switch. You can buy some grip attachments to solve this, but they only end up making the Console thicker and heavier. 

With the Switch Pro, we’ve modelled our concept as a mix between the Switch Lite and the regular Switch. Aside from the Display, we’ve also replaced the Arrow Keys with a proper D-Pad, just like on the Switch Lite. We’ve made the Joysticks a bit bigger and also applied the same colour options as we have on the Switch Lite. This would be a single colour for the entire device, but Joy-cons would still be removable and replaceable, in case you do want to make it look a bit more unique.

Conclusion

In the end, this is how this Switch is looking so far, with a brand new CPU & GPU that are both based on a more modern architecture from Nvidia, which is finally capable of doing 4K gaming when docked.

If you think about it, Nvidia actually needs this more than Nintendo does. They’re doing well in the Laptop space but AMD is completely taking the Console space. Both the current generation PS4 and Xbox One, as well as the next generation PS5 and Xbox Series X, are all running on AMD hardware.  Nvidia has to release something ground-breaking for this next generation Switch.

PS5 vs Xbox Series X – CPU, GPU, Storage, Games & Price! 

INTRO

Sony has finally unveiled the full specs of the PS5. So now that we know the full specs of both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, which one is actually more powerful? Some of you might have heard that the Xbox Series X is more powerful than the PS5, but there are some ways in which the PS5 significantly tops the Xbox. Without any further ado, here is the full comparison of the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, covering the: CPU, GPU, Memory, Storage, Special Features, Exclusive Games and Price! 

CPU

Starting off with the CPU, they’re both doing very well here. They both feature a desktop class, AMD Processor that’s based on the AMD Zen 2 architecture. They’re also both 3rd generation AMD Ryzen Processors with 8-Cores, which means that they’re quite similar to the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Processor, which is a very well received CPU. 

It’s nowhere near as powerful as the 3700X, as the clock-speeds are quite a bit lower. We have a 3.5GHz clock speed on the PS5 compared to the 3.8GHz clock speed on the Xbox Series X. From this alone, you would think that the Xbox is quite a bit more powerful in terms of the CPU, which to some extent is true. However, Microsoft has indeed confirmed that if SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading) is enabled, these speeds would drop to 3.6GHz. Sony’s 3.5GHz clock is indeed with Multi-Threading enabled. So, in that case, considering that most applications and games will indeed be taking advantage of Multi-Threading, the difference in CPU power isn’t as high anymore, although the Xbox Series X still has a slight advantage over the PS5.

Now, something that Sony has mentioned is that their system is capable of Turbo Boosting. However, the highest turbo boost clock speed will still be 3.5GHz. This simply means that games will only run at 3.5GHz if they really have to. Otherwise, they will run at a lower clock speed, in order to keep the system cool and also bring the fan noise down. The Xbox Series X will be running at that 3.5GHz clock speed pretty much all the time. So, slightly higher performance on the Xbox, but a lower fan speed on the PS5. 

GPU

So, what about the GPU? If we look at the raw GPU power, the PS5 has 10.28 TFLOPS, while the Xbox Series X has 12.16 TFLOPS. Now, that’s a 1.88 difference in raw performance, which is actually pretty massive. The PS4, for example, had 1.84 TFLOPS, while the PS4 Pro had 4.2. If you just look at TFLOPS alone, the difference in performance between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X is almost as big as the difference in performance between the PS4 and the PS4 Pro.

However, when Mark Cerny, the PS5’s Lead System Architect presented the PS5 on stage, he did talk about why the PS5 has a lower number of TFLOPS. First, he mentioned how the new GPU architecture that they’re using (RDNA2) has a TFLOP count which is not equal to GCN TFLOPS. Long story short, even if the PS5 looks to be 2.44 times more powerful (GPU wise) than the PS4 Pro, it is actually way more than that as RDNA2 is a much newer architecture.

The difference between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X is almost exactly the same as the full TFLOP count on the PS4, although this was older architecture.

The difference between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X is almost exactly the same as the full TFLOP count on the PS4, although this was older architecture.

Now, when you calculate the raw performance or the TFLOPS of a GPU, you need to take a few things into account. The biggest ones being the number of CU’s (Compute Units) and the Frequency at which these are running at. So, if we take a look at these, the PS5 has 36 Compute Units running at 2.23GHz, while the Xbox Series X has 52 Compute Units, running at 1.825GHz. Mark Cerny did say that they made that choice because he prefers to prioritise a higher clock speed, to a higher number of Compute Units and in a way, we do agree. Think of Compute Units as a Core in a Processor. Many applications (especially games) do prefer using a lower number of Cores at a higher clock speed, as opposed to a higher number of cores at a lower clock speed. Of course here we’re talking about the GPU and not the CPU, where things are indeed a bit different. So let’s take a look at the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro.

As most of you may know, the Xbox Series X is noticeably more powerful than the PS4 Pro is, being able to play most third party games at a native 3840x2160 Resolution, in some cases even at 60FPS. While the PS4 Pro can easily do 2560x1440 but it has some serious issues doing anything higher, natively. Also, the Xbox One X had 6 TFLOPS of GPU Compute Power with 40 Compute Units at 1.172GHz, compared to 4.2TFLOPS with 36 Compute Units at 911MHz for the PS4 Pro. You can see how the higher clock speed and those four extra compute units made such a massive difference on the Xbox One X. 

So, Sony might be right about something here. A higher clock speed for the Compute Units is usually preferred to a higher number of Compute Units, at a lower clock speed. Even though on paper, the difference is TFLOPS between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X looks massive, in reality, this might not be as high. However, I would still put my money on the Xbox Series X being slightly more powerful than the PS5, albeit at a lower performance gap than what it looks like on paper. 

Memory

Moving on to the RAM. Well, both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X now have 16GB of GDDR6 Memory, which is not RAM but part of it will be used as RAM for the system, while the rest will be used in games, as Video Memory. They both deal with this approach quite differently.

The PS5 uses 16GB of GDDR6 Memory, on a 256-bit Memory Interface, running at 448GB/s, which is insanely fast. Just to give you guys an idea, the original PS4 had 8GB of GDDR5 Memory on a 256-bit Memory Interface while running at 176GB/s, the PS4 Pro had a 217.6GB/s Bandwidth. Sony hasn’t yet said how much of this 16GB Pool would be available to developers, but it is expected to remain the same as before, with 3.5GB used by the OS and the rest, 12.5GB in this case, available for developers.

On Microsoft’s end, things are quite a bit different. Even though we have the same 16 GB GDDR6 Memory, we have a 320-bit Memory Interface, compared to 256-bit on the PS5, this Memory is split into two chunks. One chunk is 10GB in size, with a Bandwidth of 560GB/s, which is much higher than on the PS5, while the other chunk is 6GB in size, with a Bandwidth of 336GB/s, which is noticeably lower than on the PS5. Microsoft said that they did this because they wanted developers to have access to some really fast GPU memory, the CPU doesn’t need that much fast memory and neither does the OS. The OS will be using 2.5GB of 336GB/s memory, which means that in a game, the GPU will have access to 10GB of 560GB/s Memory and the CPU will get 3.5GB of 336GB/s Memory. 

If you do the average of 560GB/s and 336GB/s, you actually get 448GB, which is the same memory bandwidth that the PS5 has. As the APU, which includes both the CPU and the GPU, are both made by AMD, it makes sense for the memory to be extremely similar. It seems like Microsoft has just split that in a different way, compared to Sony. 

Storage

Something that is indeed quite different, is Storage. Both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 have an SSD now, which is light years ahead of the HDD that we had in the current generation. The fastest m.2 Flash Modules that we have right now, are around 3-3.5GB/s in speed. However, the PS5’s custom made Flash Module has a speed of 5.5GB/s. That’s absolutely insane! This is essentially 110 times faster than the PS4 Pro’s traditional HDD. 

The Xbox Series X has a 2.4GB/s module, which while still 50 times faster that the Xbox One’s drive, is considerably slower than the PS5’s drive. On top of this, Sony has said that the PS5’s internal storage is so fast, that it can technically be used as RAM, 5.5GB/s is almost as fast as DDR3 RAM which, for a 1066MHz Memory, is around 8.5GB/s in speed. Microsoft has also addressed this possibility, but realistically Sony has a much bigger advantage here, that is, if developers do make full use of it.

Fun fact, if you take a look at Star Citizen, which is a PC exclusive game, this game makes full use of m.2 Flash Modules. If you have an m.2 Drive, you can get even 30fps higher in the game, compared to using a standard HDD, so this is a good example were a faster Storage can indeed directly impact the FPS in a game.

An old idea for a new generation (Credit: Xbox)

An old idea for a new generation (Credit: Xbox)

Another area in which the PS5 excels when it comes to Storage, is in terms of storage expansion. The Xbox Series X has a 1TB Internal Drive. The PS5 could have anywhere between 800GB to 1TB, but the usable capacity is likely to be around 825GB, like we’ve seen in Mark Cerny’s presentation.  However, while the Xbox Series X will feature these proprietary 1TB drives that you can just slot in the back and expand the Storage, the PS5 will support any m.2 Module that you can buy off of Amazon (or elsewhere), that has at least 5.5GB/s in speed. They will be releasing a list of all supported models, but that’s great because it means that we’ll get a much higher selection compared to the Xbox and we can even get higher capacity drivers if we want. 

However, while the PS5’s m.2 Expansion Modules will be replacing the Internal Drive, the Xbox module will be adding to that Internal Storage. On top of this, Microsoft has confirmed that external HDD’s are still supported, for the previous generation games. Sony hasn’t talked about supporting external HDD’s just yet, but it is likely that they will be doing something quite similar.

Special Features

Let's summarise what we’ve said so far. CPU wise, the Xbox is slightly more powerful. GPU wise, the Xbox is again looking to me more powerful but Storage Wise, the PS5 has more than double the performance. Now we have the Special Features, the things that make each console unique.

Both consoles will indeed be supporting previous generation games, so both will be Backwards Compatible. But, while the PS5 will only be supporting PS4 games and not even all of them at this point, the Xbox Series X will be supporting Xbox One games, Xbox 360 Games and even some original Xbox games. So if you care about playing your entire library of old games, the Xbox is a much better choice. Sony does have Playstation Now, which does support some PS3 games, but the catalogue just doesn’t compare to what Microsoft is offering. 

Both consoles will also support Ray Tracing, which will make Reflections, Shadows and Lightning look significantly better than what we have now.  

This time, 3D Audio is built into the hardware to make it the new standard.

This time, 3D Audio is built into the hardware to make it the new standard.

An area in which Sony should excel, is in terms of Audio. Mark Cerny  did talk a lot about their new Tempest Engine, and how they will be achieving 3D Audio thanks to a dedicated hardware engine. Remember the dedicated Playstation Platinum headphones do support 3D audio on the PS4, however with this new hardware based engine, every pair of headphones will support 3D Audio on the PS5. Sony is even working on bringing this to TV Speakers and Soundbars as well.

While the Controller on the Xbox Series X looks mostly the same as on the Xbox One X, with the exception of a share button, the PS5 controller is said to be adding a full display as well as Haptic Feedback, which will allow you to feel when you’re driving on asphalt or grass or dirt. Apparently, this is one of the best features of the PS5, according to people that have actually tried it. But, Microsoft has indeed introduced a Dynamic Latency input. By significantly reducing the input lag from the Controller, this could make the Xbox the better choice for competitive gaming.

Speaking of this, both consoles will be supporting 120z output, so games will be able to run in up to 120fps, as well as 8K Resolution, but this will be a Dynamic Resolution while 4K would be Native this time. 

Both consoles will also be supporting different methods of Compression for games, so games will actually take up less space than they do now. On top of this, Sony has confirmed that you will be able to uninstall different parts of a game, such as the campaign after you’ve finished it, and then install the multiplayer right after. 

Exclusive Games 

Speaking of games, there is a very big difference between the two, in terms of exclusives. This is because Microsoft has confirmed that there will be no exclusive games on the Xbox Series X for the first two years, as all Xbox Series X games will be required to also work on the Xbox One series of consoles. Unfortunately, this does mean that developers will be severely held back in terms of what they can achieve, at least for the first 2 years. If you’re not sure why we’re saying this, we made a full video in which we explained why this is a real issue, be sure to check that out.

The PS5 on the other hand, while it will indeed have some PS4 games, like ‘The Last of Us 2’, that will also work on the PS5, it will indeed have exclusive PS5 games that will only work on the PS5 and not the PS4. Because of this, we might see true next-gen games on the PS5 first.

Microsoft did show us a gameplay demo of Gears 5 which compared to the Xbox One X, looked barely any different on the Series X. However, they did show us Hellblade 2, which was absolutely mind-blowing in terms of Graphics, this did indeed look like a truly next generation game. This is said to be coming only to the Series X and PC but we don’t know when this will be exactly.

So there is a chance that this will be the first game that was developed with just the Series X in mind and not Xbox One, the main reason why it can look so good. This is what you can expect from games that have indeed been developed for the next-gen hardware, compared to Gears 5 for example, which looks the same as on the current generation, just with better texture detail and longer rendering distances. 

Price 

Credit: PSErebus

Credit: PSErebus

And finally, we have the price. Neither Sony or Microsoft have revealed the prices yet.  However, we have had some leaks that put the PS5 at around $500 (£450 in the UK), making the PS5 $100 more than the PS4 Pro. 

Microsoft on the other hand, is said to have two models of the Xbox, a low end model and the high end model that we’ve all seen. The low end model is said to be less expensive than the PS5, while the high end model is said to be more expensive. I would expect the high end to cost around $580-$600, while the low end should be around $300-$400. 

Now, some of you might think that paying this much for a console is just ridiculous, but you would be surprised. A Console would last you for six to seven years. A Smartphone, which now usually costs close to $1000 (or more), is something that most people replace every two years. So, in six years time, you would’ve spent $3000 on smartphones, compared to $600 on a new console. This is a pretty massive difference.

Conclusion

So, in the end, which one is the better console? Well, the Xbox Series X seems to win in terms of CPU and GPU performance. The PS5 is more balanced when it comes to System Memory and it is significantly faster when it comes to the Storage, plus it also supports third-party SSD Modules. The PS5 supports 3D Audio and Haptic Feedback on the Controller, while the Xbox Series X supports a lower latency and significantly more previous gen games, while also offering two models of the console. When it comes to exclusives, Sony seems to have the upper hand, at least for the first few years.

PS5 (2020) – 25 Things You Didn’t Know!

INTRO 

The Playstation 5 has finally been revealed by Sony! Well, some of it, anyway. Mark Cerny, the lead system architect for both the PS4 and the PS5, has gone on stage for almost an entire hour and has talked very in-depth, just the way we like it, about all the main specification of the PS5. So, without any further ado, here are 25 interesting facts that you might not have known about the PS5!

1) World’s Fastest SSD

At Number One, the PS4 came with a traditional HDD. The PS5 now comes with an SSD. But this is not your usual SSD. This is actually a custom SSD module made by Sony, that is ridiculously fast. It turns out that this SSD module that Sony custom made for the PS5 is actually the fastest SSD module in the world right now!

2) 110 Times Faster

Ok, but how fast is this internal storage of the PS5? The PS4 had a traditional HDD, that had around 50MB/s transfer speeds. The PS5 now uses this brand new Custom SSD, which as transfer speeds of 5.5GB/s (or 5500MB/s), which makes it 110 times faster! 

A top of the line MacBook Pro, iMac Pro or Mac Pro, which are known to have the fastest SSD modules on the planet right now, have around 3.5GB/s transfer speeds. The PS5 has 5.5 GB/s, a massive improvement over even the fastest SSD modules out right now. But, how is this even possible? Well, the PS5 is now taking full use of the brand new PCIe 4 standard, this is how it can achieve these incredible speeds.

3) Mark Cerny

The guy that was on the stage and talked about the specs of the PS5 and how the entire system works, is none other than Mark Cerny himself. Mark Cerny was the lead system architect for the PS4. He was the main reason as to why the PS4 was so successful when compared to the PS3. The PS3 had this very complex architecture with the Cell Processor, that developers found extremely difficult to develop games for. 

The PS4 on the other hand, not only had significantly more power than even its competitor, the Xbox One, but it had a more traditional PC like architecture and it was so much easier for developers to take full advantage of it. All of this was thanks to Mark Cerny.

He was not only responsible for the PS4’s success, he was also heavily involved in the development of some very well known 1st party PS4 titles, such as Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted Drake’s Fortune, God of War 3, Killzone 3, Knack, The Last Guardian, Knack 2, Spider-Man, Death Stranding and so many more.  Not only that, but as an American, he’s also fluent in Japanese and moved to Japan in the 80’s and 90’s.  

He’s given tours of their game development studios to Steven Spielberg and Michael Jackson and he’s well known for developing the “Cerny Method’, this is where developers try to complete just a small portion of the game in pre-production fully and from there they can decide if the whole game is worth taking any further. Now, Mark Cerny has also been directly involved with the PS5’s development by being the lead system architect.

4) Massive Freedom for Developers

Since this new SSD is so insanely fast, it brings some massive freedom for developers. For example, because of how slow the HDD was, in some cases developers had to implement a lift, or a very long staircase, or a subway system or something that would allow the game to load a new part of the world or scene in the background. Masking loading times with a subway ride would no longer be required so developers can now design their games much more freely.

5) SSD as RAM 

We knew it was going to be fast, but this was totally unprecedented.

We knew it was going to be fast, but this was totally unprecedented.

Because of that insane 5.5GB/s speed, the PS5 can actually use the SSD as RAM (to some extent) and offload some of the assets onto it, keeping the RAM free for the most important assets.  But, how much faster is the actual RAM?

Well, DDR1 memory at 266MHz is around 2.1GBs. DDR2 Memory at 533MHz is 4.2GB/s. DDR3 memory at 1066MHz is 8.5GB/s and DDR4 memory at 2133MHz is 17GB/s. So this SSD, while still nowhere near the speed of RAM, is still close in performance to DDR3 memory, which is still very impressive. 

6) Kraken Compressions

Mark Cerny did mention that they’re using something called Kraken Compression to reduce the size of the games by 10%. Not only that, but he also mentioned, last year, that the PS5 will allow you to install or uninstall specific portions of the game. For example, in a game like Modern Warfare, you will be able to just install the campaign and then uninstall it once you’ve finished playing it, then you can install the Multiplayer and so on. This will save a ton of space by letting the user install just what he or she wants, in a game. 

7) SSD Size 

We know that this SSD is fast but how big is it? Well, Mark Cerny hasn’t really said that but, in a slide from yesterday’s livestream, he did mention 825GB as an example for the size. This points to a 1TB SSD, but the usable capacity for developers would indeed be smaller, at around 825GB, due to formatting and the space that the OS will require. 

8) SSD Expansion

The good news is that you will actually be able to expand  this 1TB of internal storage in a pretty genius way. While Microsoft will be selling their own 1TB Proprietary SSD modules for the Xbox Series X, Sony will actually allow you to install any m.2 Drive that you can buy off of Amazon. However, they will need to be at least as fast as the internal storage, and they will need to be PCIe 4 modules. At the moment, there are a few of these drives but the speed varies. Mark Cerny did mention that we should wait until manufacturers start producing these drives, but once they do, you would be able to buy any 3rd party drive as long as it matches the 5.5GB/s speed of the PS5 SSD.

9) Weaker than Xbox Series X?

Speaking of the Xbox Series X, now that we know the GPU power of the PS5 (10.28 TFLOPS), it seems like it is noticeably weaker than the Xbox Series X (12 TFLOPS). However, that might not necessarily be the case, or at least not to the extent that it seems. 

10) CU & Clock-Speeds 

The PS5 has 36 CU’s (compute units) at 2.23GHz. The Xbox Series X has 52CU at 1.82 GHz. Mark Cerny has said that he always prefers a higher clock speed, reason why they decided to go for a lower number of CU, but at the much higher clock speed. We do believe that he does have a very valid point here. 

Think of CU as the cores of a CPU, as an analogy. While some applications, like 3D rendering for example, do prefer a high number of cores at a lower clock speed, games in general prefer a lower number of cores but at a much higher clock speed. Usually games don’t need more than 4 cores. Now this is a GPU not a CPU, so things are quite a bit different but, depending on how the games are optimised, a higher clock speed might be preferred in most cases, to a higher number of compute units. So, while the Xbox Series X does look much more powerful, the gap might be much smaller than it looks. 

11) Xbox Series X SSD

Will less, turn out to be more?

Will less, turn out to be more?

Also, the SSD speed for the Xbox Series X is 2.4GB/s which while still fast, the PS5 has more than twice the speed in their SSD, which could not only mean that games will load noticeably faster on the PS5 but like we mentioned before, developers can also use the SSD on the PS5 as RAM, to some extent. This is quite a bit more difficult to do on the Xbox. 

12) Faster CPU 

CPU wise, we finally know the frequency. We now have an AMD CPU, a Ryzen 3rd gen, based on AMD’s Zen 2 x86-64 architecture. Also, we have 8 cores at 3.5GHz. While this is a pretty big improvement over the PS4’s 1.6GHz 8-core AMD Jaguar processor, the Xbox Series X does indeed have a clear advantage in the CPU department, thanks to a 3.8GHz processor, compared to 3.5GHz on the PS5. 

13) RDNA2 

But, the PS5 does indeed come with AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture (same as the Xbox), which isn’t even out yet for PC. This is AMD’s most advanced GPU architecture, which should hit stores by the end of this year. 

14) Legacy Modes 

Something pretty awesome in terms of the PS5, are the Legacy Modes. Essentially, the PS5’s GPU can turn off some of the Compute Units and the Clock Speeds, in order to make it essentially identical to a PS4 & PS4 Pro. This means that many PS4 games will be natively supported at launch.

15) Backwards Compatibility 

Speaking of this, Mark Cerny said that they tested the top 100 PS4 games and most of them were playable on the PS5, at launch. Without any updates at all required by the developers. That is great, however it does seem like not all the games will work, but a good majority of them should. Of course, if developers do release updates to their games, PS4 games will run at an even higher Resolution and Frame-Rate on the PS5 hardware. 

16) Ray Tracing

Just one example of what RTX will bring to Next-Gen Consoles.

Just one example of what RTX will bring to Next-Gen Consoles.

Probably one of the biggest new features of the PS5 will be Ray-Tracing. Long story short, this will allow for some significantly improved Lightning, Shadows, Reflections and even Audio will be ray-traced. All of this would make the Graphics and the sound look way more realistic than anything we’ve seen up until this point. 

17) Video Memory 

Video Memory is also a very important aspect of the next generation of consoles. Mark Cerny has now confirmed that the PS5 will come with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, up from the 8GB of GDDR5 memory that we had on the PS4. Some of this is used for the OS as RAM, some for games and we’ll go through this and how it comes with the Xbox Series X, in a future video. Lots of interesting things to cover there so do make sure that you’re subscribed. 

18) Memory Bandwidth 

Aside from the amount of Video Memory itself, the Memory Bandwidth is also extremely important. We now have 448GB/s of bandwidth, up from 176GB/s, which is a gigantic upgrade. 

19) Advanced API’s and Tools

Sony will be giving developers a few API’s and tools that will make a big impact on their games. We have a new Geometry Engine, we have Primitive Shaders, which are essentially a heavily improved version of the Shaders that we have now. Long story short, a higher resolution on 3D textures (rocks and bumps in roads etc). These will look much more realistic on the PS5. Primitive Shaders aren’t something that developers need to use out of the gate, but if they choose to, they can take full advantage of them and heavily improve the realism in games. 

20) Cooling System 

Now, one of the mean new features of the PS5, will be its cooling system. We’ve all seen those insane looking Dev-Kits, we were actually the first to reveal the 1st image of an actual Dev-Kit that got sent to us. 

21) Design

Mark Cerny did say that they have made a very special cooling system, and thanks to the many reports that we’ve seen that claimed that the cooling system is an extremely expensive component for Sony, it is quite likely we would see a design similar to the DevKit or at least the 2nd leak that we got. This could quite possibly be something that implements a V-shaped cooling system and still has a modern design.

22) Tempest Engine 

We got a taste of 3D Audio with the PS4, but Sony are really pushing the boat out for the PS5

We got a taste of 3D Audio with the PS4, but Sony are really pushing the boat out for the PS5

Mark Cerny did indeed talk a lot about their new Tempest Engine. Essentially, what this is, is a single Compute Unit dedicated for the new Audio Engine. We would be getting 3D Audio at the hardware level. This means, that no matter what headphones you have, you would be getting 3D audio, just like you used to on the PS4 with Sony’s 1st party 3D headphones. Not only that, but Sony is currently working on optimising the Tempest Engine for speakers as well as sound-bars, in order to be able to provide 3D audio, even if you’re not wearing headphones. This is unfortunately much more difficult to do, but to some extent at least, it is doable. 

23) Release Date 

If you’re wondering when the PS5 is getting released, this will indeed be by the end of the year. We have had many leaks saying that the actual release date would be in mid-November. 

24) Price

Price-wise Sony hasn’t said anything about the PS5, but this is expected to cost $500 in the US.

25) Selling at a Loss 

However, because of the sheer amount of high end components that Sony is packing into the PS5, we’ve seen reports that they are really struggling with the price. In fact, Sony might even have to sell the PS5 at a loss at first, in order to sell it at that $500 price point that many consumers would buy. They will be making their revenue back from the actual sales of games but, when it comes to the actual hardware, they might be at a loss.

Where is the PS5?

To say that there has been a lot of speculation about the upcoming PS5 would be a huge understatement. The amount of Leaks & Rumors have now got to a point where it is becoming very difficult to make sense of any of it. Our alliances are very split in the office but I have always leaned towards Playstation. So, since it’s been 7 years (and a few days) since Sony announced the PS4, I decided to try and get my head around just what is going on with the PS5.

Announcement Dates

In some of our previous videos, we have discussed the idea of a February 5th announcement, as per the PSErebus leaks, and a live announcement on 29th February. Most of the gaming community seemed to think that this late February announcement would materialise and are still hopeful. We are very quickly running out of February and there are no reports of any press invites being sent out (as far as we know). Plus, given the recent Coronavirus outbreak, it would be easy to understand why Sony would not want to have a large gathering of its international workforce and journalists in a densely populated place such as New York, where this was rumoured to be taking place.

So what is the alternative?

Are the days of live reveals over?

Are the days of live reveals over?

Well, an idea which has been floated about recently has been a pre-recorded ‘State of Play’-esque style of announcement. Personally, I enjoy the buzz and live reaction of new consoles & games being announced live. One of my personal favourites was the ‘God of War’ reveal at E3 2016, it was just very over the top, unexpected and it gave me goosebumps. I think it would certainly lose some of the magic if the PS5 were to be announced in a pre-recorded trailer, but circumstances dictate that this is the safest option. Additionally, as Xbox revealed the Series X with an ad at the 2019 Game Awards, it wouldn’t be that much of a shock to anyone if Sony took a similar approach, regardless of the external factors.

Something that we need to bear in mind is that the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) kicks off on 16th March. They have already pulled out of this event (as well as Pax East), citing Coronavirus concerns. However, it will be in Sony’s interest to publicly announce the PS5 before this event, regardless of attendance, as they would risk an immense amount of leaks given how much these developers know and will come to know. Moreover, Sony have indicated, via an earnings call between Hiroki Totoki (Chief Financial Officer) and investors, that they would like to stick to a similar timeline to that of the PS4 launch (which was announced on 21st February, 2013).

So, from all of this information we can be fairly certain that an announcement is imminent, but I would be surprised if we got anything this month. But Sony are more than welcome to do so. We are also forgetting that Microsoft didn’t formally announce the Xbox One until May 2013 for a November release in that year, so even if it was March before we saw the PS5, we would actually on an earlier timeline than the previous console generation.

Release Date

We know that Sony plans to release the PS5 in ‘Holiday 2020’, so somewhere between September and December this year. Granted, that is still a pretty big window and is intentionally vague. From a production perspective, it gives them some wiggle room to adjust for demand. From a market perspective, they can wait for Xbox to blink first.

We’ve known the release window for the PS5 since October 2019

We’ve known the release window for the PS5 since October 2019

The PS4 launched on November 15th, 2013. It would be logical to think that the PS5 would launch at a similar time and be marketed as the must-have buy this Christmas. If they launch in October, they would realistically fall outside that window and if they launch in December, customers might not get their units in time. PSErebus, a prominent Twitter leaker who has a good track record, predicted a November 20th release date, which I would be inclined to say is at least very close.

Conclusion

I am of the opinion that Sony will release information when they are ready and we have to be patient. Unlike Microsoft, who have other platforms outside of Xbox where they generate huge revenue (primarily ‘Windows’), the Playstation is by far Sony’s biggest earner. They spun off their struggling computer brand ‘Vaio’ into its own individual entity in 2014, they don’t make much money from Smartphones or TV’s and they have gone through several restructurings in the past decade or so. 

The next biggest division within Sony is Cameras, but there is too much pressure for the PS5 to do well. If it does not perform to expectations, Sony could be in some serious hot water with its investors. The campaign for the PS5 has to be perfect from their point of view and there are a few major risks to mitigate (namely Coronavirus and the rumoured high production cost).

This may well be the last generation of the traditional hardware-based consoles so I just want the PS5 to be the best that it can possibly be, if that means waiting a little longer to see it, then fair enough.

PS5 & Xbox Series X – The Next Generation of Games!

Welcome back to the ultimate comparison between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, based on everything that we know so far. We uploaded PART 1 of this comparison back in January. In that video, we talked about the CPU differences, the GPU, the Resolution, the Frame-Rate and the in-game Graphics.

This is PART 2 of that comparison, and here we will be covering the RAM, the SSD  and any Special Features that both of these consoles will come with, alongside any other recent leaks since our last video.

It seems like the Xbox Series X will be a bit more powerful than the PS5. The CPU will be pretty much identical between the two, but the GPU will be slightly more powerful on the Xbox. The Series X would have around 12.2 TFLOPS of raw GPU performance, compared to around 9.2 TFLOPS on the PS5. These are the calculations that DigitalFoundry made based on the recent AMD APU leaks from a few weeks prior, this will very likely be the case with the final unit. 

However, this is mostly because Microsoft will have two models of the Xbox, the low-end ‘Lockhart’ and the high-end ‘Scarlett’ (which will be more expensive than the PS5).

RAM

The Xbox Series X may dedicate more of its RAM to the OS than the PS5, but there’s still plenty left for developers to use.

The Xbox Series X may dedicate more of its RAM to the OS than the PS5, but there’s still plenty left for developers to use.

Unlike PC’s where we have separate Video Memory (GDDR) and System Memory (DDR), consoles only have Video Memory, which the Operating System (OS) gets to use a chunk of. For example, on the PS4 Pro, we have 8GB of GDDR5 memory, out of which only 1GB is allocated to the OS, while the remaining 7GB are used by games. On the Xbox One X, we have 12GB of GDDR5 memory, out of which 3GB are used for the OS and 9GB are usable by developers, in games. When it comes to next-gen, both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are said to come with 24GB of GDDR6 memory. 

When it comes to how much of this 24GB of GDDR5 memory would be dedicated to the OS, and how much can actually be used by developers, we don’t yet know. It really depends on how both companies approach their new OS on the next-gen consoles. If both companies follow a similar approach to the PS4 and the Xbox One, then Sony should have less memory dedicated to the OS, compared to Microsoft. So developers should have more to play with, in terms of video memory, with the PS5. 

In terms of the bandwidth, the Xbox Series X is said to have 560GB/s vs around 512GB/s on the PS5. 

Storage

Moving on to the storage, this will actually be the third massive change that the next-gen consoles will be getting, aside from the new CPU and GPU.

The current generation of consoles use plain old HDD’s. Yes, 5400RPM Hard-Drives, which we don’t really even see in laptops anymore, unless you’re looking at the lowest entry models. The HDD inside the current generation consoles only reach speeds of around 50-75MB/s, which is very slow. SSD’s, on the other hand, can reach speeds of up to 550MB/s but are limited by the SATA connector. While m.2 based Flash Storage can reach speeds of more than 3500MB/s. 

Luckily, both Sony & Microsoft have confirmed that the next-gen consoles will both be using Flash Storage. Yes, not even SATA based SSD’s, but m.2 based Flash modules that can reach some insane speeds.

Mark Cerny, the Lead System Architect for the PS5, said in a recent interview with ‘The Wired’, that the PS5 will have a storage module that has higher bandwidth than any SSD’s available on PC’s at the moment, which is very interesting. In that famous Spider-Man game demo, a scene that took 15 seconds to load on a PS4 Pro, only took 0.8 seconds with the PS5’s new storage (18.75 times faster). However, if we take the PS4 Pro’s HDD speed, which is about 75MB/s, and multiply that by 18.75, we get 1406MB/s. This is much faster than a SATA based SSD, so this is indeed an NVMe Flash Module, but nowhere near as fast as other flash modules that can reach speeds of over 3500MB/s. Still, it’s a massive improvement over what we currently have now.

Credit: Takashi Mochizuki

Credit: Takashi Mochizuki

In another Spider-Man demo, Sony showed how fast you can actually swing through New York on the PS5 version of the game compared to the PS4 Pro version of the game. The PS4 Pro version ends up freezing once Spidey reaches a certain speed as the HDD simply cannot load the game assets fast enough, while the PS5’s Flash module has zero problems. So, with this new type of storage, not only will the games load up pretty much instantly, you will also be able to achieve much higher speeds in games where…you know…speed is important. For example, games such as Gran Turismo, Wipeout, or any other games that feature a ton of fast moving scenes, will feel so much more immersive with the next-gen consoles. Especially once you keep in mind that 60fps would be the standard with the next gen consoles and both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will also support 120Hz output. 

We have seen a few reports that Samsung would be supplying Sony with their NVMe drives, to be used in the PS5.  Samsung did have an internal presentation and one slide did get leaked. We can see that they’re teasing their new generation of NVMe Flash modules that would apparently be used in 2020 consoles. We can also see how the system boot time drops from 49 seconds to around 9 seconds, this would be 5.44 times faster, which looks to be quite low for a Flash module.

So then why did Sony say that their drivers will have a higher bandwidth than SSD’s modules in PC’s today? Well, they were either referring to SATA based SSD where the bandwidth is indeed limited by the SATA connector or they might have been referring to the fact that their drivers would be using PCIe 4.0. This is something that AMD’s current Zen 2 platform supports and that’s where we’ve also first seen PCIe 4 introduced to the market.

Microsoft will also be doing something similar, they talked about this when they first unveiled Project Scarlett.  It will feature custom made Flash storage, something miles over what we currently have. A recent leak gives us a bit more insight into the Xbox Series X’s Flash module. A former Phison employee posted a description of his former job, on LinkedIn and it seems like we was working on a specific DRAM-less controller for the Flash module inside the Xbox Series X.

Check out @zoneofconcepts on Instagram for more behind the scenes content on our videos.

Check out @zoneofconcepts on Instagram for more behind the scenes content on our videos.

Judging by these specs, the Xbox Series X will only be able to achieve PCIe 3.0 speeds, rather than the 4.0 speeds that Sony are working towards. But, it’s extremely unlikely that Sony will be using drives with read speeds of 6500MB. So even if Sony will indeed support higher bandwidth storage, the Flash modules inside both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will likely be very similar. 

Something pretty cool that you’ll be able to do storage-wise on the PS5, is that you will be able to uninstall certain aspects of the game. So games will be made in such a way so that if you want to only install the campaign, you can do that and then once you’ve finished it, you can uninstall it and install the multiplayer part of the game. This will let you save up a ton of storage. Not only that, but the games themselves will actually occupy less. On the current generation of consoles, because of how slow the HDD’s are, a lot of the games actually had to store multiple copies of textures so that the HDD could load the data from them faster. This won’t be required anymore, with the next gen consoles and so games, at least at launch, will occupy less.

We’ve heard a lot about Sony’s production costs and how material scarcity may end up affecting the RRP, what price do you think the PS5 will launch at?

We’ve heard a lot about Sony’s production costs and how material scarcity may end up affecting the RRP, what price do you think the PS5 will launch at?

And speaking of launch, PSErebus (a leaker who’s been very accurate in the past) stated that the PS5 will come with a 2TB SSD and a retail price of $500, 500 euros or £450. That’s pretty impressive! If Sony does indeed ship the PS5 with 2TB of storage, then this would be the dream. We don’t know anything in terms of the storage on the Xbox Series X just yet, but considering that the Series X is expected to cost more, around $600 for the high-end model, it should come with at least as much storage as the PS5 does.

Sony has confirmed that PS5 games will ship on new 100GB Blu-Ray disks and yes, for those of you who are wondering, Blu-Ray drivers are much slower than even a regular HDD, with read speeds of just around 25MB/s. So, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X, the games would not be run from the Blu-Ray disks anymore The only use case for the Blu-Ray disks would be to copy the game direct to your console, as opposed to downloading it from the online store. This is useful if your internet connection is slow and you will also be able to sell the games this way. The Blu-Ray drive will still be required to be inserted into the console, for licensing purposes. 

Since the next-gen consoles will rely so much on the internal storage, even games will make full use of this faster storage by enabling a seamless open-world with no loading times at all,  both consoles may heavily limit the use of external storage use. At the moment, you can plug in an external HDD or SSD and expand the internal storage that way. It’s a pretty easy and straight-forward process.  However, with next-gen, it’s very likely that we would either have First-Party storage modules, or the Third-Party external storage options would need to surpass a certain speed threshold in order for them to be used. Our guess is that only external SSD and m.2 drives will be usable.

Special Features

Finally, the last thing that we want to cover here, is the special features that both of these consoles will have.

RTX is going to be a real game-changer for next-gen consoles and thankfully, it will be on both.

RTX is going to be a real game-changer for next-gen consoles and thankfully, it will be on both.

Both Sony and Microsoft have confirmed that the next gen consoles will support hardware based Ray-Tracing. In case you don’t know that Ray-Tracing is, it is pretty much the key selling feature of Nvidia’s RTX series of GPU’s. Real-Time Ray tracing is the most realistic way of casting shadows and reflections in games. This is because, unlike regular reflection and shadow mapping which are always fixed, Ray Tracing involves each light ray being individually cast and reflected to light up a scene, resulting in extremely photo-realistic environments. This might not sound like much but it will make a massive difference in-game.

Additionally, each of the consoles will have some unique features to them. The Xbox Series X will have Microsoft’s Project xCloud, which will essentially turn your Xbox into a server that you’ll be able to access from pretty much any device and play your games, a little like Playstation Remote. Another new feature of the Xbox will be a Windows Mode, according to some recent leaks. This would allow you to access Steam and the Epic Games Store and play PC games directly from there. As Mouse & Keyboard are fully supported, the Xbox Series X will be closer to a PC than a console.  Also, Microsoft has already confirmed that all the Series X “Exclusives” will also work on PC, so the Series X won’t have any console exclusives games. That’s pretty much it in terms of the Xbox. Microsoft hasn’t really talked about any other new and exclusive features. On the PS5 side however, we do get quite a few unique features.

We can already get 3D Audio on the PS4, how much better will it be on the PS5?

We can already get 3D Audio on the PS4, how much better will it be on the PS5?

For one, Sony has teased 3D Audio quite a lot. They said that this will make a massive difference as to how games are perceived and that the PS5 will even have a hardware based 3D Audio Chip that will handle all the 3D Audio processing. Now, there are a few First-Party headphones from Sony,  which do support 3D audio on the PS4 already and we happen to own a pair. They’re very good, but from the looks of it, this 3D Audio chip should take audio to the next level. Something else that Sony will have is next-gen haptics on the controller itself. Sony has already confirmed that the haptics in the new controller will be so good, that you will be able to feel the surface that a car in a game is driving on. So you will be able to feel the difference between asphalt, dirt, grass and so on. And lastly, the PS5 will support both the current PSVR as well as the upcoming PSVR 2. Microsoft has already confirmed that they won’t be doing a VR headset for the Xbox Series X anytime soon, as Phil Spencer himself, the head of Xbox, said - “nobody’s asking for VR”. 

One last key thing to mention here is that both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will support Backwards Compatibility in games. The PS5 supporting PS4 games with rumors of this going all of the way back to the PS1. While the Xbox Series X will support Xbox One games as well as Xbox 360 games.

Conclusion

In the end, both consoles are going to be light years ahead of even the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X so no matter which one you get, you’ll be extremely happy. The Xbox will offer slightly better specs and PC game compatibility, while the PS5 will offer things such as Haptic Rumble on the controller and VR support. Also, Microsoft will be offering two models of the Xbox, a low-end and a high-end, while Sony will only offer one, the PS5. 

Phil Spencer might think the console war with Sony is over, but who’s he kidding? 

Which one are you getting?

PS5 - MAJOR Leaks Update - Price, Graphics and more!

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

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)

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

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

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)

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 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?

PlayStation 5 (2020) - FULL Controller LEAKED!

Our last PS5 video was quite a special one, because you see we got our hands on the world’s first actual photo of the PlayStation 5 dev kit! Our video actually got picked up by quite a lot of tech websites, which never really happened before, at least not to the same scale so thank you all for your support!

But now, get those snacks ready and here’s the video and article that I promised you, focused just on the PlayStation 5 controller!

If you’re a gamer then you’ll definitely enjoy this article. And if you’re not a gamer well, keep reading anyway because the PS5 will indeed be a truly revolutionary device, not just for playing the most graphically advanced games, but also for watching 4K and even 8K movies.

When playing a game there are three very important parts of every game, in my opinion at least.

1. The Story

2. How that story is being played?

3. What the story is being played with?

Now personally, I’ve always preferred a gaming controller to a mouse and keyboard. Yes a mouse is more accurate, but a controller is much more comfortable and you get motion controllers, vibrations and even touch input, all of which immerse you so much more in the game, than a regular mouse and keyboard can.

The 1st PS1 controller, the original DualShock was one of the most iconic controllers to ever be released. It had dual joysticks, symmetrical buttons which I’ve always preferred, and vibration feedback, which back in 1997 was a huge deal. 

The DualShock 2 which was released with the PlayStation 2 back in 2000, wasn’t really that big of an upgrade. It had pretty much the same style design, just a bit slimmer, a bit lighter, and came in black but all the main buttons were actually pressure sensitive. So the more you pressed the triggers for example, the faster your car would start driving and things like that.

Then came with the DualShock 3 with the PlayStation 3. With this we got the first big change in a Sony controller. You see this was Sony’s first fully wireless controller, it featured 6-axis motion sensing which was basically a gyroscope that could sense the direction and the orientation that you held the controller at. With this you could play certain games that way and even use the controller itself as a racing wheel, really cool stuff! It also featured a miniUSB port for charging and connecting it to other devices, such as the PSP or even a full PC by using some 3rd party apps!

And then in 2013, when the PlayStation 4 was released, we got an even bigger update to Sony’s line of game controllers, the DualShock 4. Not only did the DualShock 4 feature the 1st big design change in a Sony controller, but it also came with a ton of major features.

The start and select buttons were replaced with Options and Share. We also got a built-in speaker for some sound effects that the controller would play for when let’s say, you were reloading a gun. We also got an actual touch-pad on the controller, which would not only be used in games but also in the web browser as a mouse and it was also it’s own pressable button. We got redesigned joysticks that were now concave rather than convex. It came with a massive light bar on the back for not only giving you a visual feedback of what was happening in your game, if the light went red for example, you would know that your health has reached a critical point, but that light was also used for 3D depth tracking for the PlayStation Camera and the PlayStation VR headset which was released later on. We got a microUSB port from the miniUSB that we had before, and we even got something that was by far my favourite feature, a 3.5mm headphone jack! Yes, you could now plug in any headphones that you wanted directly into the controller itself! How amazing was that? 

So yes, the PS4 controller, the DualShock 4, was the biggest change ever that Sony had made. So now what do we know when it comes to the DualShock 5, the PS5’s controller?

Well, we’ve actually had a few leaked images that give us a glimpse at the PS5 controller.

This first one was posted by Ray Sekiro on Twitter and this one shows a very weird looking controller.

The leaked PS5 controller (Source: Ray Sekiro)

The leaked PS5 controller (Source: Ray Sekiro)

Probably the first two things that you’ve noticed are the weird indented shape on the bottom, as well as the integrated display panel. But there’s quite a few more things that do stand out. The directional arrow keys on the left have now been redesigned. They’re slimmer, a bit taller and the arrow symbols are now on the inside of the keys, rather than on the outside. The PlayStation square, circle, triangle and X buttons seem to be the same as before, maybe a bit more raised, but it’s quite hard to tell from this image. The Share and Options buttons are now horizontal, rather than vertical and it seems like we also have two instead of just one speaker grills on each side of the display. And I’m not sure how well you can see this but the L1 and R1 buttons seem to have been redesigned as well and they’re much larger now. It also appears that the 3.5mm headphone jack and the proprietary connector or at least a USB type C port seem to be located on the bottom of the controller, just like on the PS4 one. 

Now let’s talk about the two elephants in the room. The Display and the Shape of this controller.

So when it comes to the display, the whole idea behind it is for it to be an upgrade to the touch panel that we had with the PS4 Controller. Personally I can definitely see this happening. That display would allow you to see certain elements of a game, such as the inventory or the in-game party or chat. I do think that that would be a very useful thing to have, since at the moment if you want to chat with your friends via text, you would connect your phone to the PlayStation, but that does take some time and typing using the joystick is just a nightmare. So something like this would speed up the typing process by a lot.

The only question is, what impact will this have on the battery life? Well it should have quite a significant one. Considering that the PS4 controller is pretty well known for a not so great battery life, I don’t think things are looking that great for the PS5 controller.

The Nintendo Switch Pro has the best battery life on a controller on the market

The Nintendo Switch Pro has the best battery life on a controller on the market

However, if you look at the Nintendo Switch Pro controller, that is by far the best controller on the market when it comes to battery life right on par with the Xbox One Elite 2 controller, both offering a staggering 40 hour battery life.

But even 10 hours would be enough, as long as Sony managed to add everything that they want in this controller, and I would say that that’s perfectly doable. Especially considering that the PS4 controller uses Bluetooth 2.1 and nowadays we have Bluetooth 5.0 which is significantly more power efficient. Add this to more efficient batteries and chips and I would say that 10 hours with that included display is doable.

Now when it comes to the shape, yes it does look to be extremely uncomfortable judging by how the bottom bit is lower than the top portion. I could be wrong, but I would need to hold it in my hand to see for myself how comfortable it really is.

However, something that you should keep in mind is that this is not the final version of the PS5 controller. No, this is very likely a DevKit controller that would work alongside the developers kit that I showed you guys exclusively in a previous video. So make sure you watch that one, in case you want to learn more about the actual PlayStation 5, as this is mostly about the controller itself.

So the final version will be more polished, with a thinner design, and possibly without that indented part towards the bottom. 

Now, when I first saw that image, I did consider the fact that it might be a very well done render. However, I don’t think this is the case for two reasons.

The first one being that we make 3D renders here at ZONEofTECH as well, like the PS5 one that you’ve seen. That was very well done and it’s also an extremely difficult shape to do, so if the controller image is a render, it’s probably the best one that I’ve seen.

Secondly, there were actually multiple leaked photo of this controller, from many other sources and they all look the same. Twitter user Tidux posted an image that shows this PS5 controller, and we have another image that was posted on Reddit, that again shows the same controller from a different angle. The image has been taken down from Reddit but you can see it on hothardware.com here.

Now they could all be renders made by the same person that decided to share it with random people but I don’t think that’s the case. If we take a look at an actual photo of a real PlayStation 4 dev kit controller, you can see that even this one had that big, thick and chunky form factor, and we all know how much thinner and sleeker it got with the final unit. However, the main characteristic of the controller still remained. Things like the overall design from the front, the button layout, the touch bar and even the light bar. Even though it did look more squared off in the dev-kit model.

Now we have actually made our own PS5 controller 3D model. It’s a blend of the PS4 controller and the PS5 dev kit controller. 

The ZONEofTECH PS5 Controller Render

The ZONEofTECH PS5 Controller Render

So we still have overall the same PS4 controller design, just with slightly longer handles. We do have the built-in display, the horizontal Options and Share Buttons, the light bar on the top which we’ve actually made bigger than on the PS4 one, for even easier tracking from a greater distance. We’ve implemented the dual speakers to the side of the display, and the 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. We did actually removed Sony’s proprietary connector, in favour of just the USB type C port on the back and that’s pretty much it!

You can see how similar it looks to the PS4 controller, yet how it incorporates the brand new features, such as the display, the speakers, and also a very unique feature that I haven’t mentioned before.

So Sony has had another interview with The Wired, back in early October, where they not only confirmed the name of the PS5 which, surprise surprise is indeed PlayStation 5, but they also confirmed the release date, Holidays 2020 alongside some exclusive details about the PS5 controller.

Mark Cerny, the lead architect on both the PS4 had the PS5, had an interview with Peter Rubin of the Wired, and Mark actually handed Rubin a PS5 controller, which according to Peter, looked very similar to the PS4 controller. According to Mark, it would be a next-generation controller as well, a change as big as the PS4 controller was from the PS3 controller.

Apparently Sony will now have a voice assistant similar to Siri, Alexa or Cortana, built into the PS5, and the controller will also have a built-in microphone to pick up that audio.

The second change that was officially confirmed are adaptive triggers that can offer varying levels of resistance based on the weapon that you use. So you’ll be able to feel the tension increasing as you pull the arrow back in a bow and different weapons having different feels on the trigger, really cool stuff!

The new haptic engine will give the user real time feedback depending on the environment they are in, like driving on dirt in Gran Turismo Sport (Source: Sony)

The new haptic engine will give the user real time feedback depending on the environment they are in, like driving on dirt in Gran Turismo Sport (Source: Sony)

And the third officially confirmed change would be a haptic engine. This would be similar to what modern smartphone use today but basically on steroids. You’ll be able to feel not just vibrations but also certain elements in a game. Peter was saying how he played a platformer game and he could actually feel things such as sand, mud, and ice on the thumbsticks. He could feel the haptic engine and the triggers offering a different type of resistance based on the environment that he was in, in the game. Peter was also shown a new version of Grand Turismo Sport running on the PS5 and he said he could fee the difference in terrain when he was driving on asphalt to when he came off the track and onto grass, sand, gravel.

If this is all true then this is incredible! I am really excited for that, although I believe the competitive gaming community would be a bit frustrated with having joysticks that constantly feel different based on what you touch and what you pick up. But this will definitely be something that the developer can enable or disable and tweak to their liking. 

Also USB type C is confirmed for the next-gen PS5 controller, which was quite expected, and Mark Cerny also confirmed the existence of a larger battery. He also confirmed that the controller is indeed heavier than a PS4 controller but still lighter than the current Xbox Controller. 

With all of this in mind I am very excited for the new PS5 and really excited to check out the new controller and see if all the rumours are true. Let me know in the comments what you guys are excited for with the PS5!

[EXCLUSIVE] PS5 (2020) - First Look, Release Date & More!

So a last week we put out a video about the PS5 and the response was amazing! But since then we have had even more leaks and even an exclusive never seen before image of the PS5. If you haven’t seen that video, check it out on this link. But for now let us give you a breakdown of all the new leaks we have!

LEAKED IMAGE

Ok, so a few days ago, someone who I’m not going to name, sent me an email that contained something very unique, an actual first look at the PlayStation 5!

The leaked image we received

The leaked image we received

Right off the bat, this design looks pretty much identical to the leaked PS5 patent that I’ve talked about in the previous video. We have the same V shape vent in the middle, we have the exact same air exhausts on the sides and probably on the back as well.

So on the left, we have the optical drive unit this will support double layer blu-ray drives, up to 100GB in size.

And then we have all the buttons and ports that we’ve had in the actual patent as well including buttons for; On/Standby, Reset, Eject, System Initialisation and Network initialisation. 

On the right hand side, we have that weird connector, that looks to be a USB type B port, then 5 more USB type A ports, out of which the 1st one seem to be USB 2.0, judging by the black inside. The next 3 seem to be USB 3.0 or higher, judging by the blue inside and then we have one more that seems to have an actual cable plugged into it. That’s probably USB 3.0 or higher as well.

And then we also have that weird circle which I believed to be a camera, looking at the patent. Especially since we have had reports that Sony and Microsoft as well, could actually be including 4K cameras into the consoles itself, for live-streaming.  But looking at this leaked image, I cannot see any camera lens or anything inside of that, so that round thing is probably just the power button in this case.

But as you can see, all of these match perfectly with the actual ports on the PS5 patent. Same layout, same number, same dimensions, so this is indeed the real deal.

Now, there are a few more things in this image, that weren’t visible in the patent. For example, we have a few more light indicators, from 7 to 0 on the left hand side, which probably show the number of controllers connected or, even more likely, the number of CPU cores being used. We also have 2 more status lights – status 2 and status 1. 1 appears to be lit up. Then we have a hidden serial number and some sort of QR code I think, on the right and a label saying that this is a prototype, Prototype 1 in this case, and that it is not for sale. 

So yes, it seems like this is indeed a developers unit and not the final version of the PS5.

In that previous video I did say that I found it odd that Sony was patenting the development unit and that I actually believed that to be the final version of the PS5. Now, the thing is the final PS5 would not look identical to this Developer Kit that we see here, but there is a very strong change that it will indeed look very very similar.

The cooling system on the Dev Kit looks to be extremely well designed. It looks like there has been a lot of thought put into this. How it sucks the air from the middle with that massive V shaped intake, which by the way, V is also the roman numeral for 5. The Air is then blown out through the sides and the back, which we cannot see in this image. So the cooling system is very well done, another reason why I think that Sony would definitely not downgrade the cooling in the final unit. Otherwise this is also going to cause a huge performance issue. If the developers work on their games and in the final unit, they end up running worse because the system is throttling due to the downgraded cooling, well that won’t be good for anyone.

Our concept of the PS5 based on the previously leaked patent.

Our concept of the PS5 based on the previously leaked patent.

Now, in the last video, we actually did actually make our very own concept based on that leaked patent and we’ve even made some changes of our own. For example, we added a water cooling system that goes all around the console, cooling both the processor and the graphics card, which would be located right in the middle of the unit. The fans will still be present which will further help cool the system down.

Now even though we have made our concept more visually appealing than in the actual Sony Patent by aligning the ports, cleaning up some details and adding LED’s and water cooling, a lot of you said that it was still quite ugly. Which is true, let’s be honest it is not the prettiest console. Personally I don’t really care about the looks as long as it’s properly cooled and it runs at 4K60 like Sony officially confirmed, on the highest settings possible, without any frame drops.

Now something that I did mention in the previous video, was that on the top of the PS5, we had something that kinda looked like rubber feet. Interesting enough, if we go back to that PS5 image and bump up the shadows, you can now easily see that those rubber feet are actually here on the dev kit as well. Now this makes me think that you can also flip the PS5 and have the air intake on the bottom rather than on the top and in that case, it could actually look better. 

Now, I tried looking at the image for some more details. EXIF files were all removed, so I couldn’t see any details such as what camera module took this, when it was taken and where but I could at least see the file name. And this was ‘2019-10-10 at 03:49:44am’, so judging by the file name at least, this was taken just a few days ago, probably when no-one else was in the building, because of that time. 

So, in conclusion regarding this PS5 design, the bad this is that we still don’t have a look at the final design. However, the good news is that the PS5 will have a brand new cooling system, which like I said, will very likely end up being extremely similar to this patent and it will also look prettier at the same time.

The PS4 Pro dev kit was just gigantic, same for the PS4 dev kit, and the final units ended up being much smaller and thinner and they also looked so much better. So whatever the PS5 is going to look like, it won’t be as ugly as the dev kit unit is.

MARK CERNY

Now, aside from this we’ve also had some more details regarding the PS5 directly from Sony themselves.

The Wired posted a massive article with a ton of exclusive details on the PS5, coming from Mark Cerny, the lead architect on the PS5 and here’s what they said.

First of all, Playstation 5 is the official name. Which I mean I think we all kind of knew that this was going to be the case, but Sony has only referred to the PS5 as “next-gen” console whenever they talked about it. But now, the official name is confirmed and surprise surprise it’s PS5.

Next up the release date is also official. Mark Cerny confirmed that the PS5 is coming in Holiday Season 2020. Which was also what I believed to be the case as well. So a November – December release date is very likely going to be the case here. I would even say that November is looking more likely than December, since that way retailers would have enough time to stock the PS5 in stores for Christmas a month later.

It is also confirmed now that the PS5 will have an AMD Ryzen CPU and an AMD Navi architecture GPU. There will be no more spinning hard-drive, instead we would have an insanely fast flash storage inside the unit, with read and write speeds of close to 2GB/s. Now, the only problem with this, is that this kind of storage is very expensive. So Sony will very likely limit this to 1TB, but hopefully they will be offering some higher capacity models. I personally am quite curious to see how this would impact external storage. Obviously if games are optimised at loading their assets for that insanely fast internal storage, and then some users add an external HDD for more capacity, this would have a huge downgrade on the game’s performance. So I do believe that Sony might limit external devices to external SSDs, or even release some sort of 1st party m.2 enclosure, which with those USB 3.0 or even 3.2 ports, that should be able to reach 1GB/s speeds as well. 

Aside from this, Cerny has also confirmed that the PS5 will actually have hardware accelerated Ray-Tracing support. Now we did know that the PS5 will indeed support ray tracing, but we weren’t sure if this would be software based or not. But from the report it seems like it would actually be hardware enabled, just like the Nvidia RTX series of graphic cards! Pretty impressive! This would significantly improve the graphics quality and the realism in games. We’ve seen the same thing happen with Minecraft, where enabling RTX would literally turn it into a different game, something that looks almost as realistic as real life. Whereas Minecraft, as you all probably known, was quite a different story.

A comparison of Minecraft graphics with RTX enabled (Right) and disabled (Left) (Source: Nvidia)

A comparison of Minecraft graphics with RTX enabled (Right) and disabled (Left) (Source: Nvidia)

On top of this, Mark Cerny also said that the game size will be noticeably reduced. At the moment since the HDD is so slow the data actually had to be duplicated in some cases on the disk, just to make it more easily accessible. This will no longer be required with the flash storage.

And Mark Cerny as also confirmed that the PS5 will be using 100GB Blu-Ray disks, essentially dual layer Blu-Ray drives AND the PS5 will also support 4K Blu-Ray disks for watching movies, which the PS4 Pro ironically lacked. Sony invented Blu-Ray disks and the Blu-Ray players and they also hold all the rights for those, yet, they didn’t include one on the PS4 Pro for movies.

Something else he mentioned was that the game installation would be different on the PS5. Apparently, you would now be able to select which part of a game to install. For example, you would now be able to uninstall the campaign, if you’ve finished that or even the multiplayer, if it’s something you’re not interested in, and save some crucial space.

The UI will also be redesigned. Now you will be able to see your game missions and even the game lobby, without even starting the game, as all of this will now be visible on the home-screen. 

And yeah, there’s even more updates that Mark Cerney has shared, including a completely redesigned controller, so keep an eye out for another video and article, as I’ve got a ton of things I want to cover in that one as well.