First Official PS5 Info Revealed: Will Be Backwards Compatible With PS4, Use SSD, Won’t Be Out This Year

While more and more rumors and reports regarding Sony’s next-gen console, which we assume will be called the PS5, has been making the rounds, we now have our first official PS5 info and it comes from Sony nonetheless!

In a new exclusive by Wired, some key PS5 specs have now been confirmed, as well as a lot of important questions answered. In the article, it’s confirmed that PS4 Lead Systems Architect Mark Cerny is once again at the helm for the PS5, and he even demos some tech for the people to pore over.

Possibly the biggest takeaways from it is that the confirmation that the PS5 will be backwards compatible with PS4 games, the next-gen console will use an SSD (Solid State Drive) for faster processing, PlayStation VR will also be backwards compatible and will be play a major role in PS5, and confirmtation that the PS5 won’t be out in 2019.

Here’s a quick and handy summary by the fine folks over at ResetEra:

• Mark Cerny is once again the Lead System Architect.
• 8 core AMD 7nm Zen 2 based on third generation Ryzen.
• Ray-tracing support with custom AMD Navi GPU.
• Custom AMD unit for 3D Audio, also aided by ray-tracing, a big upgrade. Hot on the heels of Sony having acquired near-industry-standard AudioKinetic.
• Extremely fast high-end custom SSD storage faster than any solution currently available for PC:
  Spider-Man load times on PS4 Pro: 15 seconds → 0.8 seconds on next-gen PlayStation. That’s ~19x faster!
  Huge practical game changer opening up for new design opportunities.
• Technically supports 8K but Cerny demoed Spider-Man load speed improvements on a 4K screen (I would only take this as confirmation of HDMI 2.1).
• New Virtual Reality platform strongly hinted at but also supports current PSVR (meaning millions of VR users ‘day one’).
• Death Stranding might be a cross-gen title (speculation in article based on Cerny reply).
• Physical Media.
• Backwards Compatible with at least PS4.
• Devkit is with developers and they recently accelerated its deployment.
• Four years in development so far.
• 2020.


Note that all PS5 info listed above are the real deal, and not reports or rumors.

Are you happy with what’s known so far? Let’s hope that Sony manages to sell the PS5 at a good enough price point that it won’t be the same as the PS3 launch fiasco.