It is finally revealed! Sony presented its PlayStation 5 during a conference broadcast live on Thursday evening, June 11. Or rather its PlayStation 5, since two console models were presented as well as a plethora of games and exclusives. It remains to take stock: is this console the revolution that Sony has been announcing for years? Focus! Sony did well: managing to create the event without the support of a world conference like E3 was not easy. However, the bet is brilliantly met and the announcement of the PlayStation 5 seems to be unanimous. Back on an evening that will have made the eyes of some shine and that will have disappointed others.
A fanfare start
After the announcement of a new port of GTA V (which will have crossed three generations of consoles), the conference begins with a major promise: the PlayStation 5 will be "the greatest generational transition our industry has ever known". The phrase is from Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. A real marketing lesson that sets the bar very high. And the brand says it in black and white: all the videos presented during the conference come from the PlayStation 5 and not from PC as is often the case. The promise is all the greater: the manufacturer implicitly promises that it will not have this famous " graphic downgrade" that players know only too well. What we see on the screen is what we will have in our living room. Then begins the great parade of teasers and gameplay of the games that will accompany the launch of the PS5. The first game unveiled, the one that Sony wanted to present first, is called Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. A sequel eagerly awaited by fans of the spider-man who is not… not one. Sony said the next morning that the game was ultimately only a stand-alone from the first opus released in 2018, reworked for the release of the new machine. Between this vagueness and the false joy about the announcement of a new Rockstar game, the conference starts off on the wrong foot.
Reflections full of eyes
After this half-hearted start, the presentation videos follow one another throughout the evening with efficiency. Gran Turismo is back with a campaign mode, Agent 47 returns to service in Hitman III, Sackboy (the little doll of the excellent Little Big Planet) becomes the hero of his own adventure… The universes are linked and the graphic styles too. In total, no less than 26 titles were presented in less than two hours. The final highlight is of course reserved for the sequel to Horizon: Zero Dawn, Sony's last goose that lays the golden eggs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq594XmpPBg&feature=emb_title The observation is obvious: the graphic rendering of these new PS5 flocked games is very clean. The lines are fine, the animations perfectly fluid, and above all, the light rendering is very successful. Maybe even too much. Ray-Tracing being one of the flagship features of Sony's new console, each trailer has put the package with bright rays, sunsets and endless reflections. Some trailers are therefore more of a technical demo than a real scenario discovery (Gran Turismo 7 to name but one).
PlayStation 5: a joy for developers
Although little highlighted, the real surprise is rather on the side of loading times. As Sony had announced thanks to the technical characteristics of its console, they seem literally non-existent. The proof is with the gameplay of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. The levels visibly nested within each other are accessible by the player in a simple portal pass, without any latency. A breath of fresh air that would almost think of a Super Mario Galaxy with overboosted abilities. Marcus Smith, Art Director at Insomniac Games, puts it very clearly:
"We offer things we've never been able to do, like using dimensional rifts to jump from planet to planet in an instant or exploiting Ray-Tracing on Clank. All of our alien worlds offer a density and life never seen before."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai3o0XtrnM8&feature=emb_title It is this point that makes all the interest of the PlayStation 5: according to various statements made by Sony but also by external publishers, this new console makes it possible to optimize games much more simply than today. And this, thanks to a CPU designed for developers.
"It removes so many restrictions on how many calculations we can do on the fly. We have so many ideas that are very difficult, if not impossible, to implement in the current generation of consoles. In addition, it significantly reduces development time, as less time is required for optimization." Tim Ash, developer of Lost Wing on PS5.
If the titles presented during this conference do not always seem of a higher graphic level than the PlayStation 4, we must think in the long term. Developers will have to take charge of a new tool that will allow them, in the near future, to be much more efficient in the realization of their games.
An impalpable revolution
In addition to the lack of graphic revolution, some players may have regretted the absence of the "sensory experience" promised by Sony. For several months now, the Japanese firm has announced "a degree of immersion still unprecedented". By the visual and sound aspects of his games of course, but especially concerning the touch. In April 2019, the date of the presentation of the DualSense controller, "haptic feedback" was the brand's number one argument. A technology still little known to the general public that would allow you to feel different sensations depending on the situation experienced in the game: a bandaged bow, a vehicle slowed down by the mud … The possibilities are endless and the expectation of demonstration, very important. But here's the thing: it's hard to make you feel any sensory revolution thanks to simple videos broadcast live. Even harder: to taste total immersion, Sony's ultimate goal for this PlayStation 5. This Sony conference fulfilled its contract, or even more: it presented the first games available on the console as well as the final design of it. Only, quantity does not surpass quality. The 26 games presented were mostly expected and did not show the "sensory revolution" so much heralded by Sony. All were beautiful, certainly, but is it enough to convince? All that remains is to wait nicely until the end of the year to put our hands on the beast. And we hope so: discover a new way of playing.