PlayStation 5 | Pro Spec Analysis

[ShiraNoMai]

I super doubt that. They'll at most have limited supply at launch, but they will never miss the opportunity to launch in the holiday season alongside their competitor. It just wouldn't happen; they'd launch the console at a loss if they did it at the end of Q4 (March 31st), and they can't afford to do that.

[Dragon Lord]

As Shira said, at the absolute worst it would just effect how many units are produced by launch than anything. Just as the virus is going to affect the stock of Nintendo Switch units in Japan. Granted even having a lesser number of product to move during launch wouldn't be good, there is absolutely no way Sony is going to post-pone the release of the PS5 and let Microsoft have the holiday season to themselves. 

Also important to note is that like the Switch, the corona virus could only affect the numbers for Japan. I'm not 100% on how Sony does things, but they too could have separate factories for Japan and Western countries that would not see an impact by the virus. Given how Sony has been focusing a lot more on the West the past couple of years, it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't too concerned about the Japanese launch of the PS5 and are much more focused on the Western launch of the console.

[Moonface]

PlayStation 5 Specs Revealed
Sony has officially revealed the specs for the PlayStation 5 during a presentation today that was originally meant for GDC:

• CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
  
• GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
  
• GPU Architecture: Custom RDNA 2
  
• Memory/Interface: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit
  
• Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s
  
• Internal Storage: Custom 825GB SSD
  
• IO Throughput: 5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed)
  
• Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD Slot
  
• External Storage: USB HDD Support
  
• Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive
  

[queenzelda]

They had a Dana Carvey clone presenting;

[Moonface]

Presentation itself aside because it wasn't meant for the general consumer, I'm not feeling confident with Sony on this yet. Gambling on third parties for expandable storage that they don't even know will work until after launch feels risky, and only the top 100 PS4 games will run on a PS5 at launch. Why not all of them? If it's a problem the developer has to resolve no one will do it. Why would they, there's no profit to be made out of that work. Let me bring everything over on day one just like Microsoft is offering with their system. This pick and choose approach just feels like the tacked on BC of the OG PS3.

[Dragon Lord]

Great, now that the pointless "we gotta reveal the specs!" phase is over, maybe we can start seeing some games soon.

Also a lot of developers went out of their way to fix up PS4 ports of older games, so I don't see why any of them would really have a problem just patching up a PS4 game to run on PS5. Especially when they know people will buy the same game again just because it runs better or looks better. Give me a PS5 port of Star Ocean 4 with a separate trophy list so I can triple platinum it.

[queenzelda]

What I think is hilarious is that at the very end, Mark Cerny (the presenter) STILL didn't reveal what the PS5 looked like. xD

[Moonface]

Also a lot of developers went out of their way to fix up PS4 ports of older games, so I don't see why any of them would really have a problem just patching up a PS4 game to run on PS5. Especially when they know people will buy the same game again just because it runs better or looks better. Give me a PS5 port of Star Ocean 4 with a separate trophy list so I can triple platinum it.

PS4 ports required you to buy the game again though. Patching a game up to run on PS5 will see a lot of people just using their PS4 copies, and that doesn't generate a sale. There will be sales, but nothing on par to what companies would have seen from people wanting to replay a game on PS4 from the PS3 era.

@"sunshine queen": There's no need to do so. This was a GDC presentation, and developers don't care nor need to know the appearance of a system. They only care about what it does. Consumer focused facts weren't the point of this.

[queenzelda]

@"sunshine queen": There's no need to do so. This was a GDC presentation, and developers don't care nor need to know the appearance of a system. They only care about what it does. Consumer focused facts weren't the point of this.

That maybe so; but if I were a developer, I'd want to see the finished product. Not seeing one after the presentation would send all sorts of red flags. BUT that's me. :p

[Moonface]

@"sunshine queen": There's no need to do so. This was a GDC presentation, and developers don't care nor need to know the appearance of a system. They only care about what it does. Consumer focused facts weren't the point of this.

That maybe so; but if I were a developer, I'd want to see the finished product. Not seeing one after the presentation would send all sorts of red flags. BUT that's me. :p

From a curiosity standpoint sure, but the design doesn't make any impact on what you're making, just as creating a PC program doesn't need anyone to know what every PC and laptop device looks like.
Although, if as a developer you saw a box that can't seemingly fit everything inside it without overheating, then that would be a red flag because it means the hardware you're working on isn't in a contained unit that can support it properly.

[queenzelda]

The Xbox Series X showed a box at the end of all of it's presentation & specs reveal. :p This time M$ did it slightly better. (impo) *shrug*

[Moonface]

The Xbox Series X showed a box at the end of all of it's presentation & specs reveal. :p This time M$ did it slightly better. (impo) *shrug*

They did, but their presentation wasn't meant for the Game Developers Conference, and thus was a presentation aimed at consumers. Sony is probably saving their first consumer focused presentation for around the E3 period where they can just focus on the games, features, design and price all in one go, which does put some of their reveals behind Microsoft but also gives them time to adapt to what Microsoft are doing, much like they did for the PS4 reveal.

[Karo]

So how is backward compatibility working for PS5 can I use my disc or is it like nintendo old virtual console where I have to rebuy them?

[Moonface]

So why how is backward compatibility working for PS5 can I use my disc or is it like nintendo old virtual console where I have to rebuy them?

You don't need to buy the game again if you own it already. It'll either copy the data to the SSD or just read it from an external HDD.

[Mr EliteL]

I tuned in at the worst possible time yesterday, in a completely sleepy state so everything that was being said wasn't going in. Also was in the second half as I missed the better parts of the specs being announced, or at least the more important details.

I didn't have expectations, so more interested to see the console in action.