It looks like Sony is still playing it safe when it comes to releasing any information about their future console that technically doesn’t even have an official name just yet, but they have shared a small preview of information at least, to get an idea of what to expect.
The new console appears to be slowly rearing its head to the public, one small step at a time. It won’t be long before we can get a solid idea of what it will include, but for now, we still expect to not see anything physically released to the market until 2020 (likely during the holiday season).
The few things we do know about the console is that it will feature a built-in SSD to help deliver faster load times, which is quite important as Sony is looking to support up to an 8K resolution. The latter also means you can expect it to support the latest HDMI 2.1 specifications in order to deliver that high of a resolution at a good frame rate.
Sony seems to also have learned from past mistakes, and plans on making sure the new console will be backwards compatible. Although there will be a solid push for digital formats like the rest of the industry, it will still have the ability to play physical media with an optical drive. A major win for gamers who already have an extensive collection of games built up.
Of course, there is no word yet on how far back that compatibility will go, but hopefully it will reach back as far as the PS3 to really deliver a solid win with.
For new games, they will likely be focusing on digital/downloadable media to effectively compete with Microsoft and Google as they push towards a future of gaming in the cloud. Especially with Google’s Stadia, which can possibly change everything.
No pricing information is available yet, although Sony has responded that the price of the new console will make it an enticing buy. This will be a smart move if they can afford it, in a market with an ever-growing price tag that just seems to keep getting higher, making Christmas a tough buy when you have kids that are into gaming–“let’s see…how much do we really love little Timmy…”.
