It's official — the PlayStation 5 is coming during the holidays next year, and it's called — surprise, surprise — the PlayStation 5, or PS5.
Sony shared the announcement on its PlayStation blog, confirming not only the release date and official name but also a few other crucial details about the next-generation home console.
DualShock 5
Sony says there'll be a bunch of changes PS5 will introduce. Particularly for the controller, Sony will replace the current rumble technology with a more advanced variant it calls haptic feedback that will apparently offer a "broader range of feedback."
The new controller will also have something called "adaptive triggers," which will reside in the primary R2 and L2 triggers. Sony says developers will be able to program these triggers and adjust the level of resistance the user feels. For example, a player will be able to "feel" increased tension when, say, they draw back a bow in-game. They'll also need to press harder or use extra pressure if, say, they're driving down a rough terrain in-game.
Wired got an exclusive preview of the PS5 controller, and it says the device looks "an awful lot like the PS4's DualShock 4." Sony hasn't confirmed yet if it'll be called the DualShock 5. Wired also confirmed the supports USB Type-C, has a larger battery capacity, and boasts improved speakers. No word on a headphone jack yet, though.
Hardware
Not much word is available on the hardware front, but Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan and PS5 system architect Mark Cerny did share a few details. According to Cerny, there is ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware, which means the console won't resort to software tricks for ray-tracing.
It's also now confirmed that the PS5 will use standard 100 GB Blu-ray discs, but all games will have to be installed to the internal SSD, because, according to Sony, of the speed difference between the inbuilt optical drive and the SSD storage. The company promises that games take up much less space this time around due to improvements to how the SSD reads data. Sony will also let developers to allow piecemeal installation of their games, such as when a user only intends to install a multiplayer mode, for example.
User Interface
The PS5 will have a completely revamped user interface, according to Sony, one that will show off far more detailed social features right on the home screen. Sony says players will be able to see and launch into specific features of a game directly from the home screen as well, rather than opening a game first then going to a particular section or mode.
No word yet on things such as specs, performance, graphics, and specific games in development, although Sony has confirmed the console will be backward compatible with PS4 titles.
