New information suggests Sony’s PS5 will be an absolute beast

• The PS5 graphics will be 16x better than the current PlayStation 4
• It will be backwards compatible, meaning it will play all PS4 games out the box
• The price and release date are still unknown (but it’s the PS5 is rumoured to launch in December)
• The PS5 will support ‘ray tracing’ a technology used to create photo-realistic digital environments

Sony has let slip tidbits of information regarding the replacement for the PlayStation 4, the PS5.

Lead architect Mark Cerny recently talked about his work to the press, and confirmed a few juicy rumours that has gamers in a tizzy.

Speaking about developing the PS5, Cerny confirmed that the next-gen PlayStation was based on the current PS4 architecture – which importantly, means that it will be backwards compatible. Cerny also revealed that it will accept physical disks.

Like the move from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4, the move from PS4 to PS5 will be a gentle one – many games released around launch will work on both consoles.

Under the hood is an AMD chip with a CPU based on the third generation of Ryzen processors. It will have eight cores – made of seven-nanometer Zen 2s – and will have enough grunt to support 8K resolution (that’s 16x better than Full HD).

Of particular note is the graphics, which will be driven by Radeon’s Navi line. The chip supports something called ‘ray tracing’ which is a complicated bit of graphics technology that has to do with lighting. More importantly, ray tracing is an important element in making photo realistic environments.

The PS5 will also support 3D audio (which is helpful for players wearing headphones to hear what’s going on around them).

Elsewhere, the PS5 will support the current PlayStation VR headset – and while Cerny kept quiet about just how important VR would be for the platform, we reckon there are big things in store for the PS5 and virtual reality.

The hard drives will also be replaced with faster SSDs – which means you can say goodbye to hefty load-times on bigger, open-world games.

Cerny didn’t mention anything with regards to launch date – he mainly talked about the hardware – but speculation points to a release either sometime in December, or perhaps next March.