It’s Official: The PlayStation 5 Will Be Here Next Year
Well, the rumors have been circulating for a long, long time, but this morning Sony made it official: the PlayStation 5 (and, yes, they're just calling it "the PlayStation 5"; PS5, if ya nasty) will be on shelves in time for the 2020 holiday season. As of this writing, no specific date or price point have been announced, but we imagine that - in the grand tradition of all next-gen console releases - it will be astronomically expensive.
Titles already confirmed as headed for the PS5 include Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II, and Sucker Punch's samurai action game, Ghost of Tsushima. Sony's remaining largely tight-lipped on what else we can expect from the console at this point, but are making quite a big deal about the PS5's new controller, which will replace the "rumble" feature of previous PlayStation controllers with something called "haptic feedback" and "adaptive triggers".
Jim Ryan, president of Sony’s interactive entertainment unit, explains both in a newly-released blog post:
“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."
And "adaptive triggers"?
“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.”
OK, sure, that sounds pretty cool. Not exactly the sorta thing that'd get me to shell out $600 - or whatever they end up charging for this beast - on day one, perhaps, but that'll be a fun little bonus when I inevitably pick up the PS5 eighteen months after its arrival (note: this has long been my strategy when it comes to the purchasing of new consoles and it has yet to fail me).
Where are you folks at on all this? Think the next-gen's arriving a bit too soon? Right on time? What consoles do you currently own (I've got a PS4 I use literally every day and an XBOX One that's been gathering dust since last year; it will soon be traded in towards the purchase of a Nintendo Switch, because I absolutely must play the game about the insane and hurtful goose.)? Do you plan on buying a PS5 right outta the gate, or will you hang back until it racks up a few exclusives you can't live without? Sound off in the comments below, and do stay tuned for more on the next-gen console wars as further announcements roll in. We'll probably be hearing from Microsoft presently.
