Even though Sony won’t be attending E3 this year, the company is not holding back on announcements this spring. The company has revealed today the specs for the next generation PlayStation and they are packing it with AMD’s latest technology.

The hardware is built around AMD’s Ryzen and Navi architectures with the CPU featuring 8 cores built at the 7nm level and the Navi GPU supporting ray tracing as well as 8k graphics. For storage, it will be an SSD that Sony says, in an interview with Wired, that it will support higher bandwidth than the current generation drives.

There will also be a new 3D audio chip built into the device that is expected to deliver more immersive audio. While Sony was not talking about VR in the interview, it’s not hard to see how improved 3D audio would translate to more robust experiences while using PSVR.

And Sony is going to bring backwards compatibility to the platform. The company says that PS4 games will work with the next generation hardware which will make the transition between platforms easier for gamers who play titles for both the PS4 and PS5.

Sony did not announce any performance specs or talk about their next generation services like online play or game streaming offerings but with the baseline hardware announced, the next thing on the agenda should be how the company plans to differentiate its offering with unique IP and services.

Considering that Sony has now announced its specs, it opens the door for Microsoft to do the same. We know that the company will be talking about its next-gen hardware at E3 this year and it would make sense for them to announce what’s under the hood of Anaconda and Lockhart at that conference.

Tagged with PlayStation 5, Sony