This week, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Mark Cerny officially confirmed the PlayStation 5, and provided the first details on the system, which includes word that it will be backwards compatible with the PS4. One detail that went relatively unnoticed in the information dump though is word on the system’s hard drive and the load times it will provide. According to Cerny, the PS5 will use a SSD (Solid State Drive), which is a “game-changer” for the PlayStation console and “the key to next generation.” All of the finer details on the SSD and what it means for the PS5 haven’t been specified, but we do know, in some cases, it can provide load times 19x faster than the PS4.
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“The raw read speed is important, but so are the details of the I/O [input-output] mechanisms and the software stack that we put on top of them,” said Cerny while speaking to Wired. “I got a PlayStation 4 Pro and then I put in a SSD that cost as much as the PlayStation 4 Pro—it might be one-third faster.”
With the SSD, not only will load times be drastically improved, but other facets will be improved as well. For example, the speed at which a game’s world is rendered will be better. This should mean less pop-in for dense open-world games and fast-paced racers and shooters. Meanwhile, character’s themselves will also be able to move faster with less jarring visuals.
According to Cerny, for a game like Marvel’s Spider-Man, Insomniac Games really had to push the PS4 to get Spidey to move at the pace he does while maintaining the other aspects of the game. However, Cerny demonstrated the game on PS5 to Wired, and apparently Spidey was whipping around at the pace of a “fighter jet.”
All of this is to say, not only will load times be considerably reduced, but games, especially games in certain genres, will be better because of the system’s SSD.
For more news and information on the PlayStation 5, be sure to peep all of our previous and extensive coverage of the system by clicking right here. And as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think or hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know there.
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