After months of speculation, Sony Interactive Entertainment has officially confirmed that its upcoming next-generation console will indeed be called PlayStation 5 and will be ‘launching in time for Holiday 2020’.

Sony shared the news today in a post on the PlayStation.Blog portal penned by SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan.

New Haptic Feedback Controller 5

Ryan revealed the console would feature a new controller, presumably dubbed DualShock 5, that is designed to up the immersion by incorporating a novel take on the sense of touch as part of the gaming experience. It’s heavier than the existing DualShock 4 and uses a USB Type-C connector.

The main change is the use of haptic feedback rather than the traditional rumble technology to offer a broad range of sensory responses to in-game actions. To highlight this, Ryan says;

The controller will also feature adaptive triggers on the L2 and R2 buttons. These will allow developers to code resistance into controls for a more tactile response on the user end.

PlayStation 5’s Lightning Fast SSD

In tandem, Wired has published an exclusive piece detailing what we can expect from the PlayStation 5. Alongside already known factors like the use of AMD-designed Ryzen/Navi mashup APU, Ryan revealed the PS5 would feature a new-tech SSD.

The SSD banks on efficiency thanks to upped read and write speeds, which should do away with the all too common workaround of duplicating data found on existing HDD-based consoles. In real terms, this means games will load much faster, meaning the age of painfully loading screens may soon be a distant memory.

System architect, Mark Cerny, explains physical games will be loaded onto 100 GB optical disks read by way of a 4K Blu-ray optical drive. The new SSD setup also means game installation will be different. Rather than downloading a massive cluster of data, users will be able to select what to install onto their systems. Only fancy playing the multiplayer component of a game? No problem. The same goes for those that prefer offline single-player sections of a game.

The PlayStation 5 will feature a completely reworked user interface with a focus on community interaction and in-game details readily available without having to launch games.

Cerny says;

Multiplayer game servers will provide the console with the set of joinable activities in real-time. Single-player games will provide information like what missions you could do and what rewards you might receive for completing them—and all of those choices will be visible in the UI. As a player, you just jump right into whatever you like.

Select Developers Already Have PlayStation 5 Devkits

Wired reports PlayStation 5 devkits are already in the hands of a few select developers but stopped short of sharing works in progress other than mentioning that Bluepoints Games and EA count among the lucky recipients.

So there you go, the long-awaited confirmation from Sony shared in rather lackluster fashion. The details are a little light but expect a steady torrent of nuggets as we trudge towards late 2020.

In the meantime, Sony has lined up quite the swan song for the PlayStation 4 with Death Stranding, The Last of Us 2, and presumably Ghost of Tsushima still to come.