The PlayStation 4 is nearing its 4 year anniversary, released on November 15th, 2013, but now would be a good time to get ahead and look some Expected PlayStation 5 Specs, Price and Release Details.
PlayStation 5 Expected Release Details:
The console’s history has shown us that PlayStation consoles have a 6-year break between each new version to its North American release date. The PS1 released on September 9th, 1995, the PS2 on October 26th, 2000, the PS3 released on 17th November 2006, PS4 released on November 15th, 2013 and lastly, the PS4 PRO released on November 10, 2016.
When we first address the expected release date, we can see there is a near 5-year difference between the PS1 and PS2, and 6 years between the PS2 and PS3, and lastly, when we come between the PS3 and PS4, we see that there is a time of 7 years. Between PS4 and PS4 PRO is a difference of 3 years only, because it is just a step-up of PS4 with better performance and at least sony will take 3-4 years more in releasing their next console. Obviously who would want to ruin his own product by releasing better in market.
Based on the data, it would be safe to surmise that we can expect a realistic timeline of something close to the PlayStation 5 coming in Late 2019. However, many copies of the console have been sent to the developers as devkits. According to speculations from Resetera, we could get a glimpse of the PS5 at PlayStation Experience 2018 and a full presentation at E3 2019 with a full release in Fall 2019.
Albeit the PS4 has significantly better and friendlier hardware to play with than its predecessor, the PS3, we still have to set a time window of 6 or 7 years, since the industry is changing towards higher resolutions and higher framerate as demonstrated with the recent release of the Xbox One X.
Without going into much of a comparison between the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro, it is safe to say that the PS4 is nearing the end of its product life, and it’s only a matter of time.
The industry and consumers are in demand for 4K and 60 FPS, with 4K Television sets reaching budget-friendly prices, and 60 FPS being more demanded, it is safe to say that a year or two from now, consumer demands will shift for the aforementioned needs.
Resolution and Display of PS5:
The current PS4 is incapable of achieving 4K and 60 FPS, and this would require the user to get their hands on a PS4 Pro, and that too players have to choose one or the other with very few games offering both.
The PlayStation 5 will have to step up the output game when it releases, with 4K resolution being native in the console and much like the PS4, should offer operational capability at lower resolutions of 720p, 1080p, and 1440p so that all displays will be able to work with the console, but Sony is going in the right direction with making the PS4 HDMI only, and cutting the composite cable cord.
When we come to FPS, the industry has to move towards 60 FPS and work on making it the industry norm for a significant part of the PS5’s lifespan. This will, of course, require a strong combination of the CPU / GPU working in sync, but considering the current advancements in both technologies in the recent months, it wouldn’t be too difficult to implement.
Expected PlayStation 5 Price:
The PS1 launched with a price of $299, the PS2 with a price of $299, the PS3 launched with a price of $499 / $599 with regard to the 20 GB / 60 GB variant, and the PS4 launched with a price of $399 with a base 500 GB Variant.
With all this data in mind, we should keep in mind that the average should exclude the PS3 due to the absolutely expensive hardware, and considering how the PS1, PS2, and PS4 share a lot of similarities with Hardware and ease for developers, let’s take them into the equation of calculating the average.
299 + 299 + 599 + 399 = 997
1596 / 4 = 399.
Which when rounded off can come to $399. This sounds like a reasonable price point considering the current price for a PS4 Pro is currently for $399 and the Xbox One X is for $499.
While Microsoft can match the PS4 Pro for $399 and give themselves a competitive edge, Microsoft will ultimately outprice them like they did with the Xbox 360, when the PS3 was announced at $499 / $599, and the Xbox 360 for $299 / $399.
At the time of the PS4, The ball was in Sony’s court since the XBox One came bundled with a Kinect that raised the price, and the PS4 retailed for $399 versus the Xbox One $499, but a drop of the Kinect allowed Microsoft to price match the PS4.
We all know it will happen, but Microsoft will compete with Sony on the price. While an ideal price point for the PS5 would be $399 and is a great price point, $299 would definitely give Sony the edge they need to compete against the Xbox One when ushering a new generation of consoles.
PS5 Backwards Compatibility with PS4, PS3?:
A big question would be whether or not the PlayStation 5 would be backwards compatible with PS4 games. The PlayStation consoles have a history of backward compatibility, with PS2 games being capable of running select PS1 games, PS3 (Launch) being capable of running PS2 games. This trend came to an end with the PS4 being unable to run PS3 games due to the difficulty of emulating the powerful yet complex cell-processor that powered the beast of a console.
Anyone who wishes to play PS3 games will have to subscribe to PSNow which utilizes cloud computing to give you a streaming experience of the PS3 games library.
Albeit the PS4 is friendlier to hardware specifications, it can be safe to say that there will be backward compatibility on the PS5.
Further Technologies (VR / AR / NFC?) in PlayStation 5:
We already have seen a pattern develop in the last 3 console generations. The PlayStation 2 gave us the EyeToy, which allowed us to interact with games a new way. The PlayStation 3 gave us the PlayStation Move, and the PlayStation 4 moved straight on to the PSVR, creating a perfect marriage of the previous two technologies.
Considering the rampant popularity and rise of demand in VR, we can easily surmise that by 2019 or 2020, it will be the new industry standard for developers to target.
Sony will definitely take a page from the PSVR and bundle a cheaper SKU of the PSVR or if the technology allows for it, bundle it natively into the console the likes of Google Cardboard, or the upcoming Oculus Go. The new VR headset could borrow a page from wireless VR and stream content from the PS5 to the headset.
Wireless VR is also an emerging tech with HTC working diligently towards it, so by 2019 / 2020, we can easily have a breakthrough for it, if not sooner.
Other technologies that Sony can consider implementing would be AR or NFC, ala borrowing a page from Nintendo’s book. The last Nintendo consoles make use of the Amiibo for the last systems that they have made, the Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and the Nintendo Switch.
Perhaps Sony can look at ways of implementing NFC or AR the way Nintendo has. There is already a rumor that Microsoft is working on something similar to the Amiibo, so this is another avenue for Sony to explore.
PlayStation 5 Specs: Hardware
CPU:
If GPUs are the Heart of Console then CPUs must be the brain. When PS4 Pro launched, everyone thought of big leap into future. But some games not even achieving 1080p/60fps raised many questions.
The Playstation 5 would be based on AMD’s Navi architecture, Navi being Vega’s successor in 2019. The CPU for the upcoming console would be AMD Ryzen based and will consist of 8 cores. Originally Phoronix discovered that one of the programmers at Sony, Simon Pilgrims, is working on “ZNVER1”. ZNVER1 is the AMD first generation CPU support within LLVM. What this means is that Sony is actually working on the AMD Ryzen compiler that would support the hardware and the CPU for PS5. Now this improvement was not only a one time thing or just some minor adjustment in the previous code because Simon has reported many cleanups, changes and modificaitons to the ZNVER1 Ryzen compiler within LLVM.
The simple fact is, while PS4 Pro offers a substantial bump over the graphics hardware seen in the launch machine – the Pro’s Radeon GCN graphics core provides a 2.3x performance boost – CPU gains between the two PlayStations are much narrower. Indeed, the Pro’s AMD x86-64 processor runs with only a slightly higher overclock (2.1GHz, compared to base PS4’s 1.6GHz), representing a 1.3x increase in power.
Just like GPU, CPU is also important for console and cannot be neglected. Some games are CPU intensified and with that, if there is a lower end CPU placed, you’ll see a big performance drop.
Like PS4 uses a modified Jaguar CPU, we might see Sony going for a latest addition to the AMD lines of CPUs for their next generation consoles. Introduction to new Ryzen CPU is also higly possible because of the confirmed investment of Sony in improving this technology for PS5.
4K is slowly becoming standard and in near future everything gonna be compared in that scale. To run games on 2x of 1080p resolution, which is already being hardly achieved is basically going to be hard, but, thats what innovations is.
GPU:
PS4 Pro has a gpu based on AMD Radeon which has potential of delivering 4.2 TFLOPS. With 1080m being in market, capable of 10 TFLOPS, running ROTR running at 100fps, it can be assumed that the next GPU of Playstation is going to have equivalent power of GPU inside it or better. There are also AMD Vega based GPUs coming but are still under the hood, who can easily beat GTX 1070 level of cards.
Sony is also cutting corners through economical point of view by combining the Radeon graphics and the Ryzen x86 CPU architecture together in a single chip. This would inevitably increase the cross-platform compatibility and make development easy.
1440p and 4K are going to be base of all at least, community was already expecting 4k or at least 2k. On ps4 pro with 60fps but achieving that requires a powerful TITAN or GTX 1080 Ti level of card and squeezing that into tiny console and keeping it cheap might become hard.
RAM:
Currently, the PS4 uses 8 GB of DDR5 RAM running at maximum clock frequency that manages to reach 2.75 GHz (5500 MT/s) paired with a peak bandwidth of 176 GB/s.
Samsung has currently demonstrated DDR6 RAM, and the speeds are also something that are sure to impress. According to the article, a single 16GB module is capable of processing images and video at speeds of 16Gbps with 64GB/s data I/O bandwidth, this approximately equates to transferring approximately 12 full-HD DVDs (5GB equivalent) per second.
Considering most modern games on PC have a 16GB requirement, we can easily say that the PS5 will have a 16GB module in it to allow for developers to have the utmost freedom when it comes to creating games for the system, and if we had to be REALLY optimistic, we can stretch as far as 32 GB.
The Controller: DualShock 5:
We know that the controller went through a major shift after 3 generations of PlayStation consoles. The design maintained uniformity throughout the PS1, PS2, and the PS3 and the PS4’s remote introduced newer analog sticks, a touchpad, and the traditional Start and Select buttons were replaced with Options and Share buttons and who could forget the lightbar that served no purpose?
It recently came to attention that Sony is asking UK Gamers to survey the PS4 controller, meaning that the controller could undergo another revamp.
While the touchpad was one of the main focus points of the controller, very few games actually made genuine use of it such as Infamous: Second Son, Uncharted 4, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
While we can’t be sure if the touchpad will make a return, we sure hope that the lightbar is redesigned as it never actually had any functionality outside of a good night light. We can be sure that the Share button is there to stay since the button revolutionized the way gamers shared content on social media and other places.
Another welcome feature would be the presnce of the 3.5mm audio jack in the controller as it made gaming without speakers or late night gaming a dream come true for many gamers who do share a room, so we are hopeful that Sony learns from the good stuff of the controllers and keeps it for the Dualshock 5.
The overall design of the PlayStation controller should remain consistent overall, but we will have to wait and see what features of the Dualshock 4 will be scrapped and which will remain.
VR Headset:
If for a moment we ignore above facts, PlayStation 5 could be a total VR module or something similar. As VR being rapidly evolving and around the world different types of games and tests are being done on it, there is a better chance of it to prevail in future with great success.
Oculus is a hit of current time, and other consoles have released their own versions too. They’re all working good but the products releasing in them are in Beta stages, need a lot of attention and bug fixing. So, this is going to be actual next-generations for sure but it needs time. However, for the Playstation 6, Virtual Reality tools would directly be integrated into the system architecture. It’s safe to say that Sony will continue to rely on PlayStation VR.
All these speculations are based on the Sony’s previous records and community’s expectations. So, that it for now, till more updates arrive or leaks shared to community, keep visiting #TheNerdMag.