Looks like Sony is pulling out all the stops to impress gamers ahead of the launch of the PS5. A new feature on the PlayStation website reveals a host of top developers hailing the PS5's "blistering" loading speeds and "revolutionary" 3D Audio capabilities.
Sony has already said that the proprietary PS5 3D Audio engine, called Tempest, will deliver object-based 3D sound that will allow gamers to "hear individual raindrops". Now the blog post has revealed how developers are putting the tech to use.
According to Returnal director, Harry Krueger, "in a fast-paced action game with lots of verticality, [3D Audio] can help with the player’s situational awareness, and make it more intuitive for players to pinpoint the locations of nearby enemies or incoming projectiles in the heat of combat".
Looking forward to playing Resident Evil Village on the PS5? The game's producer, Jun Takeuchi, claims it's almost as if, "PS5 3D AudioTech was made specifically with horror games in mind", and that 3D audio means player no longer have to invest their own time and money into a fancy surround sound set up. "Now, just putting on a headset, they can get a full 3D audio experience," says Takeuchi. Well, we wouldn't be so sure of that, but it seems gaming headsets are going to get a serious upgrade.
Other developers chose to hype up the PS5's high-speed solid-state drive, which could make annoying loading screens a thing of the past.
Brian Horton, creative director of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, reckons that the PS5's "near-instant" loading times will allow game developers to create ultra-detailed 4K scenes – without fear of keeping users waiting.
Looking further ahead, Ari Arnbjörnsson, who works on Returnal, questions the point of splitting PS5 games into levels: "What does it mean for developers when everything can be loaded from the disk that fast? Will we even need the concept of 'levels' anymore?” Well, consider our minds blown.
And to confirm that the PS5 is very much a next-gen console, it's been revealed that Sony is ditching the classic digital optical audio port (as seen on the PS4 and PS4 Pro). That tallies with Microsoft's decision to drop the port on the Xbox Series X.
The confirmation didn’t come directly from Sony and there are no official pics of the back of the PS5 yet. Instead, the news dropped during a press briefing held by gaming headset manufacturer, Astro. The company also confirmed that it will offer an HDMI-to-optical splitter for the PS5, which should allow 4K passthrough for video without causing any additional lag.
Despite the fact that Sony still hasn't revealed an official PS5 price or release date, it recently opened registrations for a "limited number" of PlayStation fans. Fingers crossed we won't have to wait too much longer for the official launch, rumoured to be taking place on 13th November.
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