Sony PS5 Dev Blog – Highlights and Confirmed Specifications!

You’ll see our latest updates from the official PS5 developer’s blog below. Just hit refresh every couple of minutes for the latest news! (Don’t worry, we’ll let you know when we’ve finished)!

THE VIDEO HAS NOW CONCLUDED!

Confirmed Specifications (More Details)

• AMD custom Zen 2 chip
• CPU – 3.5GHz frequency (achieved most the time)
• GPU – RDNA 2 chip – Max capped 2.23GHz frequency at 10.3 teraflops
• The console will have ray-tracing capabilities
• SSD – 825GB – Aiming for 5.5GBps transfer speeds – 100x faster than the PS4.
• Additional Storage will be available including an M.2 expansion port (supporting manufacturers models not confirmed nor likely to be at launch).
• PS5 will come with PS4 backwards compatibility
• Improved cooling and power consumption (details to be revealed at a later date)
• Tempest Audio Engine – Improved sound quality. Pinpoint accuracy in sound, phase and path.

What Did We Think?

Some decent specifications that seem to suggest that (with the exception of storage capacity) the PS5 is going to be about on par with the Xbox Series X. Not major surprises there.

It was a bit disappointing to hear so much talk about the audio. It clearly boils down to one of two things. Either Sony is amazingly proud of it, or they wanted to bloat the video out another 15 minutes!

Either way though, we have our confirmed specifications! Having spent an hour watching it, I’m not off for a well-deserved drink!

PS5 News – Straight from the Announcement as it Happens!

16:55 – Yep, we’re all done with the promise of more to come in the near future! – Thanks for joining us folks!

16:55 – Wrapping things up now…

16:54 – Yep. I saw that one coming! – Sounds like Sony intends to improve this over the lifespan of the PS5

16:53 – The audio platform has used sample subjects to find the best ‘sample’ audio HRTF settings. Sounds like this may be part of the initial PS5 set-up allowing users to pick the settings that sound best for them.

16:52 – Still talking about audio. It seems like specific features are being implemented for headsets. They are, however, also looking to work on a ‘virtual’ surround sound system with TVs. Games are in development that are testing the features and, again, headsets do seem to be a focus. It’s beginning though to feel like a bit of bloat that’s coming around to rounding off the presentation.

16:49 – Mentions they’d like to have used Dolby Atmos but found it too limited for mass consumer use. Meaning not enough people have Dolby Atmos headsets or systems.

16:48 – Tempest RD AudioTech – The audio will be known as the ‘Tempest Engine’. Hard to tell if the PS5 is going to have a fully-dedicated audio unit, certainly sounds like it though.

16:48 – Waffling on a bit about audio quality and testing. In all honestly, while all sounding well and nice, he’s spoken more about this than he did the actual specifications.

16:42 – Discussing how the audio will be improved massively in the PS5 – “Sounds will have dimensionality” – “presence and locality”

16:40 – Hardware specifications discussed and confirmed.

16:39 – Power will be specifically allocated between the CPU and GPU to ensure the best performance from the component that needs it the most. GPU speed is capped at 2.23GHz. CPU at 3.5GHz.

16:38 – Improved cooling (Yippee!!!) – This was a major problem with the PS4!

16:36 – Power consumption (and heat levels) now. Mark Cerny admits it wasn’t great on the PS4, but it should be improved with the PS5 quite significantly.

16:34 – There is a PS5 ray tracing game in development that only seems to have a moderate effect on performance

16:30 – ‘Nearly all of the PS4’s top 100 titles will be playable on the Playstation 5’ – Discusses some optimisation systems including detail improvement and special effects.

16:30 – Backwards compatibility will be included!

16:28 – AMD Zen 2 APU style processor confirmed.

16:27 – Raytracing confirmed!

16:27 – BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY!!! – “was handled masterfully by AMD”

16:27 – Talking GPUs now.

16:26 – Approved 3rd-party M.2 drives will likely not be confirmed at launch. Testing is still underway.

16:24 – We’re getting towards an announcement about PCIe 4.0.

16:24 – Additional M.2 SSD’s will be supported as well as standard HDD storage drives. M.2 drives must be AT LEAST as fast as their own drive, however.

16:20 – ‘Kraken Decompression’ might make that level of storage go much further than it would appear on the surface.

16:19 – Discusses an 825GB capacity drive as the ‘ideal level of storage for the PS5’.

16:17 – Begins discussing custom hardware within the PS5. It’s pretty technical (and honestly rather boring) stuff so far.

16:16 – PS5 storage should be 100 times faster!

16:15 – RAM optimization should be a key focus on the PS5. Suggesting that the storage speed is so fast that the SSD effectively can ask as RAM.

16:14 – Admits that patching PS4 games takes too long on standard hard drives.

16:12 – Discusses load times affecting developers creating maps to work around a seamless transfer and duplicated assets clogging up unnecessary data

16:10 – Suggests PS5 is aiming for 5GBps data transfer speeds. That’s pretty damn fast! Building on the instant load times mentioned around this time last year. “Fast travel becomes blink and you’ll miss it”

16:07 – Talking SSDs now. Starting to get into the interesting stuff!

16:06 – Mark Cerny discusses development cycles for games developers and seems to suggest that PS5 is making this easier (and potentially faster).

16:04 – The video title seems to confirm we are getting hardware specifications!

16:03 – WE’RE LIVE!!!

16:02 – And… nothing! Is Sony letting us down here or are they being fashionably late?

15:43 – Still nothing on the blog page. I’m hoping this isn’t a bait and switch from Sony. We were told they’d be something to ‘watch’.

15:21 – Mildly concerned that there hasn’t been any fresh news from Sony yet. There isn’t even a placeholder on their blog page. Less than 40 minutes to go…

14:00 – Article Published and pending the launch of the stream – Popcorn on standby!

PS5 Developers Live Blog!

Today at 4 pm, Sony’s PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny will provide a deep dive into the PS5’s system architecture, and how it will shape the future of games. While the event will be live-broadcast on their official blog page (which you can check out here) we will be looking to provide you with fresh updates as they happen!

If you, therefore, can’t watch the blog post but want the hottest news, this is the page you want! So stay tuned and hit that refresh button every few minutes at 4 pm as we’re going to be working hard to bring you the latest news and our thoughts on it!

Please note! – This is going to be a very fluid article (written as it happens) and, as such, our presentation may get a little messy at times. We will, however, update the latest news right at the top of this article! In other words, this text will start scooching down below and you’ll start seeing the updates appear above!