Anticipation for the PlayStation 5 has been steadily growing. Sony's upcoming foray into the ninth console generation won't come until the end of 2020, and, while Xbox has already revealed what their Xbox Series X will look like, the Japanese developer has held their cards close to their chests regarding its plans for next-gen. But that all changed yesterday when PlayStation's lead architect, Marc Cerny, held a press conference titled "The Road to PS5," which promised to reveal new details about the console.
Many gamers were excited about the upcoming reveal, but that excitement turned to disappointment when they saw what the hour-long presentation actually entailed. Rather than show what the console look like or preview any upcoming games, Cerny spent the time talking about the hardware specs of the PS5. While he revealed quite a bit of new information, including the console's SSD system, custom GPU, 3-D audio and backwards compatibility, the deep dive into the technical side of the PS5 went over many gamers' heads. As a result, many Sony fans were bored by the presentation, feeling that the presentation didn't do enough to excite them about the next generation.
It was a rather weird presentation to sit through from a gamers perspective, but that's because it wasn't meant for gamers. Before the presentation started, Sony Interactive Entertainment President & CEO Jeff Ryan prefaced that the reveal was originally meant to take place at the Game Developers Conference, an annual event that brings together industry professionals to talk about the future of gaming. GDC features various events, including tutorials and keynotes centered around programming and design for video games.
The conference was originally scheduled to take place this week. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GDC was postponed until August. To make up for this, some developers chose to hold digital presentations during this period to make sure their information still got shared, which was just what Sony just did.
Sony's PS5 presentation was meant to show developers how easy it will be to make games for the console, not to show gamers all the exclusive titles that will come in the future. It's understandable that fan expectations would be high, as gamers want to know what next-gen is going to look like and Sony, up to this point, has said very little on the PS5. While the technical side of gaming is important, the average consumer doesn't understand the intricacies of hardware capabilities, only understanding it in terms of how their games look and feel to play.
But as boring as it might be for most gamers to get lectured on hard drive space and audio capabilities for an hour, it's important to remember that the presentation wasn't targeted at players, and, as the year continues, more info on what the PS5 offers for consumers will surely come.