Sony PlayStation is one of the biggest names in the console gaming market as well as the game development market. Their latest console PS5 was released last year and proved to be an incredible piece of machinery. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing pandemic, it has faced a high demand, low supply crisis. Though a lot of effort is being made to increase the availability, the crisis might not end for a year or so more. Amidst all this chaos, why not learn about how your favorite consoles are made?
Mark Cerny Explains PS5 Brainstorming
A lot of time, effort, innovation, and planning are required to create a product that you might like. PS5, being one of those products, also went under a lot of ideation and planning. Mark Cerny was featured in a detailed interview on WIRED to explain the intense brainstorming sessions they went through to get that done. Mark Cerny, as some of you might know, is the Lead System Architect at Playstation 5.
It included discussions about things they wanted to include in PS4 but couldn’t, new ideas, and things they wanna remove. Apart from that, they had to work upon the suggestions from fans and the community. These also included heavy and “brutal” discussions with the game developers and asking about their needs.
“I am looking for the developers that give me the hardest time, and the ones who really have strong opinions about what they need to make the game they’ve been dreaming of. Those are brutal meetings to be in, but they are good to have as at the end of the day, you’re making a stronger console,” said Mark Cerny.
What Was Implemented and How?
- SSD – It was a feature that fans and the community were asking for a long time. They had to brainstorm on how many cell systems would be required and what kind of speed they wanted to achieve. Devs asked for an NBME SSD with at least 1GB/s of reading speed and they set a goal of 5-10x more than that. Owing to that now you don’t have to wait for numerous seconds for fast travel in games.
- Invisible Compression – If you were wondering how the games have a smaller size on PS5 than PS4, it is because of this technology. Using it they compress the games for the devs, resulting in a much smaller visible size to you. For example, Subnautica is just 4 GB of PS5 as opposed to 14 GB on PS5. Similarly, Control: Ultimate Edition is about 50 GB on PS4 and around 25 GB on PS5.
- New software technology called Nanite was implemented. It keeps things realistic and detailed, no matter how much you zoom in or zoom out.
- Ray Tracing was another big GPU feature that required an immense amount of work. It allows you to see those shadows, reflections, and lighting changes which makes things more realistic.
- 3D Audio was made to be like something you’ve never heard before. They made sure you can experience it with any kind of headphones you own with a dedicated 3D audio chip.
- Last but not the least, the Dual Sense Controller required massive iterations to make you feel all those vibrations. They emit audio frequencies and were made by sound designers.
If you want to know all that in more detail, do watch the full 15-minute-long video attached above.
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