Japanese giant Sony Corporation is going to release its next-generation gaming console in late 2020. The console will most likely be released during winter holidays and it will be interesting to see how it is going to compete with its main rival, Microsoft's Xbox Series X. The PlayStation 5 manufacturer has recently revealed its detailed specifications, teasing the product that will be released at the end of the year.

As it was expected, the console will be much stronger than its predecessor, PlayStation 4, and it will be capable of running video games in 4K resolution.

While this is not going to be the same as playing on a powerful gaming PC, Sony has made a huge step forward and there is no doubt that the new product will amaze its fans.

PlayStation 5 and game developers

In the live event that was streamed on YouTube and PlayStation blog, Sony has revealed detailed specifications of PlayStation 5. "Game creators matter," is the message Sony started the presentation with. The company representative talked about how the companies who manufacture gaming consoles should listen to game developers, and that is exactly what the Japanese technology giant did with PlayStation 4. The previous consoles focused on evolution and features, but this would not give developers enough time to make games for those systems.

This has also been balanced with PlayStation 5 as game developers will have enough time to develop Video Games for it while Sony will also be able to develop hardware and take it to the next level.

PlayStation 5 specs

According to Mark Cerny, most game developers had issues with slow reading times of a hard disk drive (HDD), which is why the next-generation console will include a solid-state drive (SSD).

The goal of the new gaming system is to load games almost instantly and without loading screens. Furthermore, the SSD will make game and update installation much faster, and it will be nothing like it is today. The SSD will have a custom flash controller with 12 channels, which will allow it to have a bandwidth of 5.5 GB per second.

The total size of the storage unit will be 825 GB, which is believed to be a perfect size for storing video games and is also cost-effective.

The first specification that was revealed during the live stream was RAM memory. PlayStation 5 will have 16 gigabytes of GDDR6 RAM memory and most of it will be in active use, as opposed to the current-generation system. Sony has also revealed that the upcoming PlayStation console will use a custom AMD RDNA 2 chip. The GPU is also backward compatible with PlayStation 4 games, which is a piece of great news as it will allow players to play older games.

"Almost all of the top 100 PS4 games will be playable at launch," Cerny said. Additionally, the PlayStation 5 GPU will include ray tracing, which is a new technology.

Both CPU and GPU of the new console will be run continuously in the boost mode instead of working at a constant frequency. The GPU frequency will be capped at 2.23 GHz and will have 10.3 teraflops. On the other side, the CPU will be capped at 3.5 GHz.

Sony is pushing immersive audio with the release of the new gaming console. Tempest 3D AudioTech has been built by Sony and will power the PS5 audio.

It runs on the 3D Tempest engine, is built on AMD technology and boasts SPU-like architecture. There will be no Dolby Atmos present in the upcoming console. The goal for TV speakers is to implement virtual surround sound, which is quite challenging.

Xbox Series X comparison

Microsoft has also revealed the specification of its upcoming next-generation console Xbox Series X. The console will have 8x Zen 2 Cores running at 3.8 GHz, while its GPU will have 12 TFLOPs, with 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz. The upcoming console will have a GDDR6 memory with a capacity of 16 GB and its total storage will be 1 TB on a custom SSD. Looking at raw specifications, Xbox Series X is slightly more powerful than PlayStation 5, but we will see how that is going to affect the sales.

Furthermore, Microsoft's console will support gameplay at 120 hertz and there has been a lot of talk about running games at 8K resolutions, although this will most likely not happen. The good news is that Xbox Series X will be compatible with Xbox One accessories, which is great for gamers who already own Xbox One and plan to upgrade when the new console comes out.

It will be interesting to see how these two upcoming next-generation gaming consoles will compete against each other. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 had a close race, but Sony blew Microsoft out of the water with PlayStation 4. Microsoft's Xbox One had a relatively unsuccessful launch, which has affected the sales of the console. It is estimated that the company has sold around 50 million units, but no one knows it for sure as Microsoft stopped reporting sales numbers in 2015. On the other side, Sony has sold 109 million PlayStation 4 units, which makes this console the fourth most popular gaming console of all time.
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