Sony PS5 Release Date Window, Controller Details, Official Name, And More

Earlier this year, we unexpectedly got the first details about Sony's next-generation console plans. Once again, the company has shared more--in somewhat unceremonious fashion--confirming the system's name and when it's coming out: It's officially called the PlayStation 5, and its release date will fall somewhere in the Holiday 2020 period. While there's still no word on how what the PS5's price will be, Sony did also share the first details on new features available in its controller--at least for now, not yet called the DualShock 5--and more about the discs it uses, ray-tracing support, SSD, UI features, and other aspects of the system. Here's what we learned.

The company announced some of this news in a PlayStation blog post. "I'm proud to share that our next-generation console will be called PlayStation 5, and we'll be launching in time for Holiday 2020," said Sony Interactive Entertainment present Jim Ryan in the post. "These updates may not be a huge surprise, but we wanted to confirm them for our PlayStation fans, as we start to reveal additional details about our vision for the next generation."

Ryan went on to share more details on Sony's vision for the next generation, as well as its plans for the PS5 controller: "One of our goals with the next generation is to deepen the feeling of immersion when you play games, and we had the opportunity with our new controller to reimagine how the sense of touch can add to that immersion.

"To that end, there are two key innovations with the PlayStation 5's new controller. First, we're adopting haptic feedback to replace the 'rumble' technology found in controllers since the 5th generation of consoles. 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. You can even get a sense for a variety of textures when running through fields of grass or plodding through mud.

"The second innovation is something we call adaptive triggers, which have been incorporated into the trigger buttons (L2/R2). Developers can program the resistance of the triggers so that you feel the tactile sensation of drawing a bow and arrow or accelerating an off-road vehicle through rocky terrain. In combination with the haptics, this can produce a powerful experience that better simulates various actions. Game creators have started to receive early versions of the new controller, and we can’t wait to see where their imagination goes with these new features at their disposal."

Sony shared more details on the PS5 in an interview with Wired, similar to how it revealed the first PS5 information earlier this year. The company reassured fans, for example, that the hard drive seen in current-gen consoles is out, and a faster, more efficient solid-state drive is in. More new details include:

• The PS5 will include a disc drive for physical games and 4K Blu-rays.
• PS5 discs will have a capacity of 100 GB.
• Game installation is mandatory, but the console will allow you to just install a multiplayer campaign, for example, or install the entire game and then delete the single-player portion once you're done.
• The controller "doesn't have a name yet," but contains an improved speaker, USB-C connectivity, and a larger-capacity battery.
• "There is ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware," says Mark Cerny, lead system architect.
• The new UI will allow you to see more details on what you can play at any time, as well as more on what your friends are doing.
• Bluepoint Games, the studio behind remakes such as Shadow of the Colossus and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, is working on a PS5 game that it says is a "big" one.

Sony has not yet shared what the PS5 will look like, nor its precise release date or price point. Earlier this year the company did state it was working on a new PlayStation, but stopped short of confirming a release window or name, so this is the first time those details have been confirmed. We do know is that the PS5 will be better for the environment and that it will support backwards compatibility in some way. For more, check out everything we know about the PS5.