Sony PlayStation 5 News, Specs, Price & Release Date

Ever since the original PlayStation was released, with its only close competition being Xbox, it is still the most popular and successful gaming console in whole wide world! PlayStations 5 hopes to continue that legacy of unchallenged reign at the top. One of the main reasons for its success is marketing and a huge library of  fantastic exclusive titles. These are most offline story mode games. 

Some people may argue that Xbox One has a better community and hardware support for online shooting games, multiplayer games like FIFA and Halo. However, there is a huge proportion of players that prefer to play story mode games only. And in that area, Sony ‘s PlayStation is simply the one and only true king. Likes of Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War propelled this console to timeless glory. 

Needless to say, PlayStations 5 is the one of the most anticipated gaming products out there. Its predecessors PS4 and PS4 Pro are quite the machines. It’s marketed all around the world. Moreover, most of the exclusive titles like Horizon Zero Dawn look breathtakingly beautiful on it. The optimization and overall gamepad design never fail to deliver. Lets take a look at what we can expect from the next generation console in the form of PlayStations 5.

Sony PlayStations 5 Price – Leaks & Rumours

If we take a close look at history, Sony made a huge mistake when it released PS3 at $599 initially. It made the gamers more inclined towards Xbox 360 at that time. The aftermath of this pricing made the company realize this make on release of PS4 thankfully. Thankfully it launched at $399. The pricing and marketing combined, PlayStation 4 is currently the highest selling gaming console with almost double the amount of units compared to Xbox One. 

Therefore, even the company officials confirmed that they had learned from the PS3 mistake and don’t intent on repeating that. However, thanks to added perks and features, price hike of some degree is inevitable. We were initially expecting to retail PlayStations 5 at a price tag similar to what PS4 launched at.

However, to everyone’s dismay, an online retailer posted PlayStations 5 for Pre-order at a price of about $999!! Nobody saw that coming. However, rest assured, there is no authentic backing for it. Since the console is not actually launched yet, it may very well be a hoax. Or it may be a social experiment by the company to see how everyone reacts (conspiracies!). And it is clear that no one really likes this pricing. Anything up to $499 price for PlayStation 5 is acceptable really. All the leaks until now suggest that this might be the right price point. Anything higher than that and it may be PS3 story all over again.

To summarize, the expected price of PS5 in £400 in UK, $499 in UK and about €450 in Europe.

PlayStation 5 backward compatibility with PS4, PS3, PS2 and original PS

I’m gonna be honest here. It doesn’t really matter to players like me if we PlayStation 5 is compatible with PS3, PS2 or the original PS. However, what matters is if PlayStation 5 is compatible with PlayStation 4 games or not. If not, then it is going to cause a huge disruption among the gamers. 

The PS4 gamers do not have much of an issue playing games like FIFA. However, when PS5 is released, then the shift won’t be as smooth. Not every player would suddenly buy the new console. Imagine having a group of friends that play same game on PS4 and then not having the option to play when someone shifts to PS5. That would really suck. Thankfully, Mark Cerny confirmed that PS4 games will work on PS5. Another thing worth noting is that it’d include physical discs as well. 

The only key difference is the fact that PS4 games will run significantly faster on PS5. This is because of new hardware upgrades like SSD and Ryzen processor. It not only improves loading speeds, but also makes in-game events like fast-travel much faster than before.

Confirmed specs for PlayStation 5

Here are the main specs that are confirmed for PS5. And all of this comes directly from Mark Cerny. This guy is incharge of PS5 development and design.

• 8-Core Ryzen CPU based on 3rd-Gen Ryzen architecture.
• Graphics processor from Radeon Navi GPU Family.
• An especially built SSD storage for PS5.
• Support for 8K resolution.
• 4K at 120 FPS gameplay support in PlayStation 5!
• Fully compatible 3D audio support.
• Ray Tracing graphics processing.
• Getting rid of loading screens between scenes (much similar to God of War).

Just from the initial PS5 news, it has gotten ever gamer super excited already. One of the biggest drawback for PS4 Pro was that it could only play games at 4k30. In 2019, 30 frames are noticed by gamers instantly. And to be honest, it is not a pleasant gaming experience. Xbox One X already supports 4K60 which is really nice.

However, resolution is not the major update for online gamers. All they need is high framerate to get even more precise in shooting games. Hopefully, the new PS5 will run games at 120fps and higher. This would mean that PC gamers would not have too much to hold against console gamers!

Upcoming PS5 Games

As I mentioned at start of the article, one of the key reasons for PlayStation’s success is exclusive titles. This includes the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-man, God of War, Uncharted series, Last of Us and so so many more!

Similarly, we are promised a lot of great titles with release of next-gen console. These include the likes of Last of Us 2, Death Stranding, Final Fantasy VII Remake,  and a lot more on their way.

According to some sources, the focus of Sony is mainly on AAA titles of instead of Indie titles for next-gen console. This seems like a correct strategy, at least at the launch. The company wants to fully unleash best possible capabilities of its system.

PlayStation 5 Release Date

Initially, it was rumored that PS5 would release in mid or late 2019. However, to our dismay, Mark Cerny confirmed that it won’t release anytime this year. The only plausible release date for PlayStation 5 is mid 2020. By then, PS4 would have completed the tenure of almost 6 years! 

In all fairness, this is more than enough time and we just cannot wait to get our hands on next-gen gaming machine.

Other Rumours and Expectations

Certainly, there are a lot of improvements in hardware department. However, this is not the only front that company is focusing on. Cloud computing and remote play are also in Sony’s priority list.

PlayStation Now

This service is currently available in PS4. For those who don’t know about it it, this service allows gamers to stream games directly to their consoles without downloading it. Therefore, you save yourself a lot of storage. However, this technology is still far from perfect and requires very fast internet connections. Folks at Sony want to make this technology even more accessible in coming time. Who knows this may be the future of gaming? What are your thoughts?

Remote Play

This is another feature that exists in PS4 but not used very often. Why would you want to play a game on mobile phone for example when PS4 is running anyway. In addition to this, the controls do not shift as seamlessly to remote play. Therefore, the AAA titles are harder to play with it. 

Once again, Sony developers are increasing their efforts to make remote play even more accessible and a feasible option. It works well for 2D platformers already. Maybe it would be worthwhile to use it for games like FIFA, Red Dead and Spider-man too?

Conclusion

Gathering from all the rumours, leaks and news, upcoming console is definitely going to hit all the right cords. It is going to be one of the most powerful gaming machines. The highlight features are 4K at 120fps, super-fast SSD and fully supported and high-end 3D audio support for all games. 

We would love to know your thoughts about it as well. Share your comments below!