Sony has officially confirmed that their next-generation console will be called PlayStation 5, and they’re launching it in time for holiday 2020.
That means that, as we pretty much expected, we can expect to get our hands on Sony’s next console in a little over a year, just in time for Christmas. Although the release date and the title of the console are no big surprise, it is still nice to get official confirmation, but what is a little more surprising is Sony’s announcement that they are revamping the controller for their next console.
Specifically, Sony says that they want to “deepen the feeling of immersion when you play games”, and to do that they want to “reimagine how the sense of touch can add to that immersion”. To do this, Sony is replacing the traditional “rumble” technology that has been present in controllers since the 5th generation of console, which could be quite a revolutionary thing to do. Replacing the rumble technology will be “haptic feedback”, which will allow players to “feel a broader range of feedback” from their controller. Sony says that this will make crashing a car into a wall feel distinctly different from making a tackle on a football field, and you should even get a sense of textures when you’re travelling through long grass or puddles of mud.
The new controllers will also have “adaptive triggers” , which will allow developers to program the resistance of the triggers so that players can experience “the tactile sensation of drawing a bow and arrow or accelerating an off-road vehicle through rocky terrain”. Sony says that these adaptive triggers coupled with the new haptic feedback will produce “a powerful experience that better simulates various actions”.
It’s quite the change for Sony to get rid of the rumble feature that has been a staple of every console in recent memory, and it’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft opt to do a similar thing with the controller for their next-generation Xbox. The new technology sounds like it will give every game its own distinct feel in your hands, which should help to improve the immersion, but I’m now more curious about what it will look like. Will it follow the same design that Sony has used for years, or could we finally see a radical overhaul of its appearance and feel too? We’ll have to wait and see.
PlayStation 5 will launch in Holiday 2020.
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