Play Station 5 latest news, specs, relese date, rumours and wishlist

Sony PlayStation 5 is Finally Confirmed PS4 successor could  Launch in 2018 

THE PlayStatio 5 is coming, Sony have confirmed

 

While a 2018 release date for the PlayStation 5 has been predicted in some quarters, it seems increasingly likely that this notion is a red herring. In an interview with German site Golem.de, Sony’s Shawn Layden has given a very strong indication that the PlayStation 5 is unlikely to appear in the near future.

Layden stated that it would “probably be some time” before the PlayStation 5 hits the stores, obviously indicating that the suggestion of a 2018 launch is significantly wide of the mark. In addition, Layden also provided strong support for existing PlayStation 4 owners, addressing the suggestion that Sony could begin to release PlayStation 4 Pro dedicated titles.“That will never happen! With the Playstation 4 Pro we have for the first time implemented this kind of innovation within the life cycle of a console. 

The Pro is really only to offer advantages such as 4K resolutions and HMD for players who can and want to use that. Add to this a more stable image rate and larger hard disk space. But [PS4 owners have] no real disadvantages. Each of our games will continue to run on the classic PS4 and possibly slightly better on the Pro,” Layden commented.

This indicates a commitment to the existing PlayStation 4 generation which will probably hold off the release of the PlayStation 5 for quite some time. Indeed, we may not see the next Sony console generation in the current decade, with a late 2020 release window more likely.

PS5 Specs How powerful will the PlayStation 5 be? Can We Have Proper 4K Gaming?

The implications regarding the graphical capabilities of this forthcoming console have led some commentators to suggest that the PlayStation 5 may feature 8K resolution technology. This looked completely implausible when the possible release date of the PS5 was mooted as 2018. But by the time that the PlayStation 5 emerges in 2020 or even 2021, 4K resolution should be firmly established as a mainstream technology, and 8K could instead be seen as the next generation offering.Native 4K support, surely, will be a basic requirement of the PlayStation 5? And if Sony cracks that particular problem with alacrity, it could even mean that a PlayStation 5 will arrive sooner than anticipated.

Chris Kingsley, CTO and co-founder of developer Rebellion, dangles an even more ambitious technological carrot in front of a putative PS5: “Obviously new hardware should be able to support 4K TVs and possibly even 8K TVs at a push!” 

Again, without any announcements, we can’t fully assess what the PlayStation 5 will look like from a hardware perspective. We can, however, take a look at the competition, and see what Sony will need to do to compete.

Let’s take a look at the Xbox One X, which has an an eight-core 2.3 GHz CPU, paired with 12GB GDDR5 memory and a GPU sporting 40 compute units operating at 1172 MHz. In layman’s terms, this is a mid-range 2017 gaming PC, but with lots of clever software and hardware tricks to squeeze maximum performance out of it.

PlayStation 5 will be much more powerful than the PS4 Pro

The analyst who predicted the existence of the PS4 Pro and PS4 Slim has cast his predictions for the release date for the Sony next-gen console, the PS5. However, his predictions for a 2018 release don’t make sense because releasing a next gen console so close to the PS4 Pro will make Sony bury themselves. We predict a release date close to 2020 with a difference of a year more or less.

Streaming Games On  PS5

Of course, if games were just streamed to the PS5 that problem would disappear entirely, and Sony already has a game-streaming service in the form of PlayStation Now.

So why isn’t this more of a definite feature rather than something on our wishlist? Well, Sony is remaining tight-lipped about PlayStation Now uptake figures, but we suspect they are pretty unimpressive. It has certainly had issues with setting the right subscription charges, given that PlayStation Now effectively gives backwards compatibility – a “luxury” that was previously free for owners of PlayStation 2s and 3s.


There would be nothing to stop Sony launching a small form-factor cloud-based version of the console for those with mega-fast broadband.

But the biggest issue is broadband speeds. Even 4K TV requires a minimum of 25Mbps broadband in order to provide satisfactory streaming, and it’s doubtful whether 4K game streaming – with extra information on top of the visual side – would even work reliably at such speeds. There would be nothing to stop Sony launching a small form-factor cloud-based version of the console for those with mega-fast broadband, perhaps with a mobile phone-style subscription model that has an upfront hardware costs.

But for the PS5 to sell anything like its predecessors, there would have to be a conventional version with similar innards to the PS4.

In his recent autumn statement, chancellor Philip Hammond announced an infrastructure investment aimed at bringing fast broadband and 5G mobile data to the UK. But the earliest that would have an impact would be 2021, and the PS5 will almost certainly arrive before then. Perhaps its first mid-cycle update, though, will be a streaming version which takes advantage of burgeoning 5G networks?

The VR Effect .What Will we get a new headset?

Sony recently became the first console manufacturer to embrace virtual reality, thanks to the Playstation VR , but if you examine PlayStation VR closely – and observe how it operates on the PS4 Pro – it invites speculation about how a PS5 might take VR to a new level. 

Currently, PlayStation VR operates at lower resolution than the Oculus rift and HTC vive but, as it stands, even its current incarnation almost pushes the base PlayStation 4 beyond its limits. Running a PlayStation VR on a PS4 Pro brings improved frame-rates, which are very handy indeed in terms of the overall VR experience, but even the PS4 Pro can’t overcome the resolution constraints set by the PlayStation VR headset.

So it’s a good bet that, presuming PlayStation VR is successful (and it already appears to be catching on) Sony will want to return to the market with a second, markedly higher-tech iteration: which would provide an obvious selling point for the PlayStation 5. And if a PlayStation VR 2 headset could be sold without an external black box, it should be markedly cheaper, further accelerating VR’s march into the mainstream.

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PS5 Backwards Compatibility. What can we expect?

Sony will ensure that the PlayStation 5 is backwards compatible from day one, while it is widely anticipated that the corporation will also provide wirelessly charging for controllers even while they are being used. Perhaps the PlayStation 5 could also be significantly mobile.

Improved virtual reality functionality has also been anticipated in some quarters, after the PlayStation VR headset made a more than decent debut in the PlayStation 4 generation. Tech Radar reports that enhanced virtual reality capabilities will be delivered by a new wireless VR headset when the PlayStation 5 generation emerges

Sony was at pains to make sure consumers saw the PS4 Pro, a modest improvement over the base console, as a mid-cycle refresh.Microsoft, meanwhile, sees the One X as the beginning of the end of console generations. Microsoft’s head of marketing, Aaron Greenberg, told Engadget “We think the future is without console generations.”

Both with very different outlooks, but both doing something important: allowing players to carry over their game libraries.

PS5 is Upgradable or not?

Microsoft has revealed its biggest weapon in its crusade to consign the console cycle to oblivion. Project Scorpio, due at the end of 2017, will include some form of upgradability. Which, bearing in mind how little we know about the console at this juncture, may be required in order for Project Scorpio to run games in full native 4K, or could perhaps pave the way for it to run HD or 4K VR games in future. 

It would be easy for Sony to take such a route with the PS5, since it will share PC architecture with Microsoft’s consoles. But even for Microsoft, with its PC legacy, an upgradable console is quite a punt: the components which would be the most likely candidates for upgrades, the CPU and GPU, would themselves come in at roughly the cost of an entire new console, and telling gamers that can only run certain games in all their finery if they upgrade their consoles is a very alienating ploy. 

Sony is much more comfortable with the concept of console cycles, which means it is less likely to add upgradability to the list of the PS5’s attributes. But, that said, it will closely watch what Microsoft does with Project Scorpio.

PS5 Relese Date when can we expect the Sony PS5?

Given that the PlayStation 4 was launched in 2013 and Sony’s previous consoles arrived in six-year intervals, it would be easy to project that it will launch the PlayStation 5 in 2019. The sort of technology available then should easily allow full native 4K games without saddling the PS5 with a massive price-tag and, by 2019, 4K TVs will be the norm, rather than the exception, in the average household.

2020 might be the year in which Sony unleashes the PS5 on the world, as the first native 4K console with wireless VR ... as long as Microsoft doesn’t get there first

So it would be a surprise if Sony doesn’t want to capitalise on that at the earliest possible juncture. However, Kingsley points at the PS4 Pro, and reckons that could have an effect on the length of the current console cycle: “It’s a difficult one to judge, but overall I think it’s fair to say that the overall cycle will lengthen slightly.”

Especially if the PS4 Pro wildly outsells the base PS4, which admittedly isn’t something we anticipate happening once it has reached a critical mass of households with 4K TVs.

So perhaps 2020 might be the year in which Sony unleashes the PS5 on the world, as the first native 4K console with wireless VR ... as long as Microsoft doesn’t get there first.

PS5 Price How much will it cost?

Finally, an affordable price tag will be essential for the PlayStation 5 if the console is to reach a mass-market audience. This should see the console launch at around the $500 price point that Microsoft has already set for the forthcoming Xbox Project Scorpio. Nonetheless, it seems that there is a lots of water to pass under the bridge before we see the PlayStation 5 confirmed by Sony.

The PlayStation 5 from Sony will be hotly anticipated, yet no professional gambler would stake money on when it will arrive. There is no doubt that the console marketplace is becoming ever more complex, with the tried and tested formula of the past no longer prominent in the present. The days of a console having a comfortable shelf life of ten years are over, and all major manufacturers are almost being forced to think on their feet in order to respond to this reality.