Back in April, WIRED got an exclusive look at the next-gen PlayStation, detailing its new features and capabilities. Today Sony confirmed, to no one’s surprise, that it will be called the PlayStation 5. Not only that, but it will also be released in the 2020 Holiday Season.
This news was confirmed in a PlayStation Blog post written by Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan. While this post also confirms the name and release date, it also emphasizes the importance of the controller.
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.
PlayStation 5 won’t be the only console released in Holiday 2020, as Microsoft’s next console codenamed Project Scarlett is also slated to come out at the same time. Next-gen is almost here, and it will be very interesting to see who comes out on top.