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In an exclusive interview with Wired, Sony’s Mark Cerny has revealed some early details about it’s next gen console.
While Cerny would not confirm if the system would be called the PlayStation 5 – he would only refer to it as the “next-gen console” – he did reveal the upcoming console will support backwards compatibility, as well as current PlayStation VR hardware.
“I won’t go into the details of our VR strategy today,” he said, “beyond saying that VR is very important to us and that the current PSVR headset is compatible with the new console.”
He also confirmed it would also have a disc drive, therefore accepting physical media, and an SSD will enable the system to load much faster than its current-gen sibling. 8K and ray-tracing support will also be available, 3D audio, and boosted CPU and GPU, too.
“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,” Cerny added. “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.”
While Cerny stopped short of confirming a definitive release window, he did intimate that it will not be launched in 2019.
“The key question,” he said, “is whether the console adds another layer to the sorts of experiences you already have access to, or if it allows for fundamental changes in what a game can be.”
