And the winner is…
Over the weekend, IGN ran a poll to see which next generation console readers would like to see the most, out of four options – Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Google.
The poll ran for three full days: Friday at noon through Monday at noon, and received over 40,000 votes.
The winner was Sony, taking over half of the votes at 52.8%, Microsoft coming in second place at 28.5%, Nintendo in third at 14.2%, and Google with only a sliver of the votes at 4.4%.
Discussions around Sony’s next-gen console – which we are calling the PlayStation 5 or PS5 until an official name is released – have been circulating for months, with more news coming out recently.
It was already released that PS4 games will be backwards compatible on the PS5, and last month during the Sony Investor Relations Day 2019 Q&A session, Deputy president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, John Kodera, mentioned the possibility of cross-play between the PS5 and other consoles as well.
“Having compatibility is a positive thing. Not only can a game be played on the next-generation console, cross-generation – the community can enjoy the games together… bridging that compatibility has a very important role to play,” Kodera said.
In terms of games, it is unknown if upcoming titles will be released separately for the PS5, along with their PS4 releases. Games including The Last of Us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, and Death Stranding are on our list of games we think are already in development for PS5. Last month, these three titles were shown in a presentation in reference to PS4 exclusive AAA games to come in the future.
Lead system architect for Sony’s next-gen console, Mike Cerny, shared details of the specs for PS5 in an interview with Wired, stating that the console will have a fully updated CPU and GPU, which will deliver a faster system, offer more memory options, and incredible graphics.
The breakdown of tech includes: a third generation of AMD’s Ryzen line, which houses eight cores of the new 7nm Zen 2 microarchitecture. The GPU will have support for ray tracing, which has never been seen in any game console before. IGN wrote an in-depth piece on what ray tracing is, how it can affect a games performance, and why you should care about it.
The AMD chip will also allow for 3D audio – something Cerny says can really immerse the player into the world.
“As a gamer, it’s been a little bit of a frustration that audio did not change too much between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. With the next console the dream is to show how dramatically different the audio experience can be when we apply significant amounts of hardware horsepower to it,” he said.
A release date for the PS5 has yet to be announced, but reports show it will likely be in 2020 or after. Retail price is still unknown as well, but it has been mentioned that the price will not increase too significantly, in relation to upgrades for the new system.
For more details on what we know about Sony’s next-gen console, make sure to check out our breakdown of everything we know so far about the PS5, and watch the PS4 Pro vs. PS5 load times in a demo with Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Jessie Wade is a news writer at IGN. Follow her on Twitter @jessieannwade.
