In an exclusive article by Wired, Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan confirmed two important details for Sony’s next console: It’s called the PlayStation 5, and it’s releasing in Holiday 2020.
Sony initially announced their new, then-officially-unnamed console back in April, along with several details including a Solid State Drive for instant game loading and ray tracing support for advanced lighting features. Sony skipped the E3 convention this year for the first time, leaving us with many questions for several months.
One of those newly answered questions revolves around the unnamed controller, which is a lot like the Dualshock 4 but with haptic feedback instead of rumble. “With haptics, you truly feel a broader range of feedback, so crashing into a wall in a race car feels much different than making a tackle on the football field,” writes Ryan. “You can even get a sense for a variety of textures when running through fields of grass or plodding through mud.”
The PlayStation 5 controller will also feature adaptive trigger buttons. Developers can program the L2 and R2 trigger buttons to create different tactile sensations, such as the difference between drawing back a bow and arrow or firing a machine gun.
Developers have been working with the PS5 devkit for some time, but the controller prototypes have only just started getting into developers’ hands. The new controller could have been included as early as the PS4 Pro, but Sony didn’t want to split the user-base with such a huge feature, and opted to save it for their next generation console. The PS5 controller will use a USB Type-C for charging. The larger battery and haptic features make it heavier than the Dualshock 4, but still lighter than the Xbox controller.
The PlayStation 5 will launch in a little over a year, during Holiday 2020.
