We’ll never know if Sony had any plans to unveil the PlayStation 5 in February, as some insiders and leakers said, and it’s all thanks to the coronavirus scare the prompted the company to pull out of trade shows even before the events were canceled (MWC) or postponed (GDC). These decisions were clear indications that Sony isn’t a fan of big press events that involve plenty of people during the outbreak of a new contagious disease. And if Sony isn’t keen on attending other big events, it surely won’t organize any of its own.
Microsoft, on the other hand, already unveiled the design of the new Xbox Series X at the Games Awards this past December. Then last week, the company surprised fans with a blog post that revealed plenty of the Series X specs and features. The PS5 does deserve a proper launch event, especially considering that the PS5 design is still a secret. But depending on how fast the coronavirus outbreak is contained, Sony might be forced to unveil the console with the help of online-only events or regular old press releases.
While we have no idea what Sony will do next when it comes to unveiling the new console, we’ll remind you that we already know plenty of things about the PS5, even though we lack many specifics. Like Microsoft, Sony has been revealing bits and pieces about its next-gen console for a few months now, stopping short of giving fans everything they wanted. The company confirmed the CPU and GPU hardware going into the PS5, without actually mentioning clock speeds or performance. It showed the performance of the SSD without telling buyers what kind of capacity options the console will have to offer. It demoed the new DualShock controller’s haptic feedback without revealing any other new features or confirming the DualShock 5 branding that we expect for it.
Since there is a bunch of official PS5 information out there that has been confirmed, one Redditor put together a great roundup of everything that Sony has said so far about the PlayStation 5, as well as the specs that are almost confirmed. Here’s a quick recap of what you can expect from the PS5 in terms of confirmed specs and features before we get to the full roundup:
- CPU: 3rd-gen AMD Ryzen 8 Cores of 7nm Zen 2 with 16 Threads
- GPU: AMD Radeon Navi custom variant that supports hardware-based ray tracing
- Backward compatibility with PS4 games
- Support for current PSVR
- High-density 100GB Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray movies
- DualShock 5 controller with haptic feedback
- DualShock 5 controller with adaptive triggers
- SSD: Custom SSD drive with more raw bandwidth than any SSD for PCs
- Games running 4K graphics at 120 fps
- Cross-generation gameplay support
- Support for 8K resolution – requires 8K TV
Sony also confirmed the name of the console — PlayStation 5, of course — its logo, and its launch timeframe, which is obviously the holiday season this year.
The Redditor listed semi-confirmed PS5 features in addition to everything we know for certain. For example, he or she says that the PS5 will support the HDMI 2.1 standard, a feature implied by Sony’s revelation that the console will support 4K 120Hz gameplay, which requires HDMI 2.1 support. Also, because the PS5 will support the current PSVR, that means it’ll also support the PS3 and PS4 Move Controllers.
In the roundup, this person also labels DualShock 5 features from recent Sony patents as semi-confirmed, including the controller’s design, touchpad, and back buttons. That’s is the only feature I’d argue can’t be added to the category, as patented technology doesn’t always make it into commercial products. Also, we’ve shown you plenty of other PlayStation-related patents that Sony recently filed, which could all be considered as semi-confirmed features for the PS5 using the same logic.
Finally, the Reddit post also lists all the games that have been confirmed for the PS5, including Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Rainbow Six Siege, and Battlefield 6. Check out the entire huge PS5 roundup below.
Summary of all confirmed and semi-confirmed information. from PS5
