Yesterday, Sony officially revealed some of the features behind its upcoming PlayStation 5 after keeping very quiet about it for the past year. Now we can finally begin to make comparisons between the PS5 and Microsoft’s Project Scarlett (the codename for the next-gen console coming after the Xbox One).
While there isn’t enough information to make a full comparison yet, there is more than enough to start picking out nuances between the two. Here’s what we know. Both consoles will support ray-tracing. Both consoles will upgrade to better CPUs and GPUs designed by AMD. Both consoles will move from a spinning hard drive to a solid-state drive. And both consoles will support backwards compatibility. But other than these major features, it seems there will be several nuances between the two that could affect gameplay and play style. The devil’s always in the details.
So far, Sony has said nothing about any specific games for the PlayStation 5, but there are rumors that Bluepoint Games Studio, the developers for Uncharted, is working on a title. Microsoft, on the other hand, has announced only one game for its console: Halo Infinite.
Additionally, neither company has gone into much detail about how they want to conduct online multiplayer. We have heard that both companies will introduce their own cloud streaming services to compete with Google Stadia. For Sony, the streaming service is PlayStation Now; for Microsoft, Project xCloud.
Sony has also spoken out about two innovative new features that might affect online multiplayer. The first is the ability to download portions of games. For example, the PS5 could revolutionize game downloading by giving players the ability to download parts of a game instead of the whole thing.
What does this have to do with online multiplayer? Well, it means only downloading the online multiplayer portion of a game instead of the entire thing.
Another feature for the PS5 involves a much-improved home screen. Sony wants their console to have various windows on its home screen with information for gamers about what’s available in each game. For multiplayer, this information would show who is online, what type of matches are active, and how many players are on a server.
Both consoles will be released just in time for the holidays next year. As of this moment, Sony has confirmed that its console will be called the PlayStation 5. Microsoft has yet to reveal the official name for its console, however.
