Sony has been hard at work ensuring their next console can replicate the incredible success of the PlayStation 4. In an exclusive with Wired last month, chief architect Mark Cerny teased some of the PS5’s innards, which include an AMD Ryzen processor and custom Radeon Navi GPU. But more interesting, perhaps, was the revelation it would include an SSD.
Calling it a “game changer,” Cerny demonstrated the specialized drive’s potential by using it to decrease loading times in Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man from 15 seconds to 0.8 seconds. He also labeled it “the key to the next generation.”
In an excerpt from PlayStation Official Magazine’s June 2019 issue, a spokesperson from Sony doubled down on that same belief: “An ultra-high-speed SSD is the key to our next generation. Our vision is to make loading screens a thing of the past, enabling creators to build new and unique gameplay experiences.”
While the lack of loading screens still seems like a pipedream, it appears that PlayStation gamers will be spending more time playing rather than waiting when the next-generation console finally comes around.
Having such a fast SSD available on all next-generation PlayStation consoles may well allow game developers to dramatically improve certain aspects of their titles which were previously bogged down by the slow specifications of the usual hard drives. Open world games in particular should benefit greatly.