PS5 is a “huge step up” and will “significantly” reduce development time, says studio

The next generation of console hardware is drawing ever closer with information on both the PS5 and Xbox 2 slipping through the cracks with easy passing week. 

Whether it comes from internal documents or developer interviews, we’ll eat up any and all updates we can find on the ambitious new systems from Sony and Microsoft.

A recent interview with Tim Ash (via Business Times), a developer at BoxFrog Games, unveils a few new important details on PS5, including its SSD, refresh rate capabilities and other features.

“The advent of having high performance SSDs on PS5 is a bigger deal for general performance and immersion than I think a lot of people realise,” explains Ash, talking about the impact PS5’s storage technology will not only have on players, but developers as well. 

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Sony has already held internal presentations with investors showcasing the system’s increasing loading times, with Marvel’s Spider-Man appearing to work 18 times faster than on PS4 Pro. It’s a marvellous change, and one that could arguably transform console gaming. 

The report also touches on the PS5 CPU, which is yet to receive concrete specifications from Sony. We know that, once again, the graphical hardware will be provided by AMD, complete with capabilities for ray tracing and 8K resolutions. 

“It will be a huge step up,” he said. “It gets rid of so many restrictions with how many calculations we can do on the fly, we have so many ideas which are very hard, or even impossible to implement in the current generation of consoles. Also it actually reduces development time significantly as less time needs to be spent on optimisation.”

However, it’s worth noting that little of the above has been officially confirmed by Sony, although that doesn’t stop us from getting all excited. So far, Sony has confirmed the PS5 will feature an SSD, faster loading times, support for ray tracing and full backwards compatibility for your PS4 library. That’s a lot of good stuff that will, hopefully, only get better.

PS5 and Xbox 2 are due to launch before the end of 2020, although no concrete release dates have been announced for either console. In terms games, it’s possible we’ll see updated ports of The Last of Us 2 and Death Stranding on Sony’s part. Halo Infinite is the big launch title for Microsoft, the first time we’ve seen Master Chief in over four years.