Sony, please give us some PS5 information already. It’s been months since Microsoft began divulging details to us regarding the Xbox Series X’s impressive capabilities.
We’ve heard whispers of PS5’s graphical power and ray-tracing capabilities from game developers and we spotted a tentative list of features from GameSpot (that was subsequently taken down), but there’s been little in the way of an official wording from the Sony camp.
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As fans get increasingly desperate for news, a leak has recently resurfaced with an almost complete list of PS5 specifications. It comes from online forum 4Chan, of all places: a dubious source at best, given its posters are all anonymous, but there has been some verification of 4Chan leaks in the past.
One poster, who divulged a glut of PS5 details, correctly predicted PlayStation Europe’s new slogan (“It’s time to play”) days before it appeared on the PSEurope Twitter account. With a mixed track record, it’s best to take the following with a hefty pinch of salt, but there’s no reason to immediately discount it.
According to this leak, picked up by news outlet BGR (opens in new tab) and others, the now-deleted 4Chan thread listed the PS5 specs as follows:
- 13.3Teraflops RDNA 2 GPU @ 1.7GHZ with 60 CPU
- AMD Zen2 8 core @ 3.4 GHZ (Sony is working on boosting to 3.7GHZ)
- RAM 16GB GDDR6 + 4GB DDR4
- SSD@5.5GB/S @ 1TB
- Dedicated Ray Tracing and 3D Audio cores
- DualShock 5 with haptic feedback, microphone and heart rate monitors.
- Full digital backward compatibility with every PlayStation console and a library of thousands of games.
- PSAI voice-controlled assistant.
There’s a lot to dissect there, and much of it sounds too good to be true. The graphical power of this rumoured PS5 specs sheet outpaces the Xbox Series X, which packs only 12 Teraflops. It’s also got a dedicated chipset for “3D audio” much like the Series X’s devotion to “audio ray tracing”.
Full backwards compatibility with every prior PlayStation console is wishful thinking, but if true, imagine the possibilities: the original Metal Gear Solid trilogy! Final Fantasy VII! Tomb Raider! All with a next-level DualShock 5 to play on, which can do everything from provide haptic feedback to adjust PS5 games based on your heart rate.
Full backwards compatibility? Time for a victory fanfare!
Much of this lines up with previously-released rumours, which is what gives us pause for thought - all except the reveal date. According to the original 4Chan leak, it was meant to be March 3, which has obviously passed us by.
However, there’s still no reason to discount the leak in its entirety: so far, Sony has cancelled its presence at E3 and GDC this year, the latter over the increasing global health threats. We imagine Sony is watching the current state of things very carefully, and as such, these dates are constantly in flux. But if the crisis does not start to subside, Sony’s best bet will be taking to the airwaves and live-streaming a PS5 reveal. And doing it soon.
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