PlayStation 5 is the easiest console to make games for, developers say

Overseas developers say the PS5 is a breeze to make games for, strongly hinting it shares architecture with the PS4.

@DeekeTweak

Published Dec 28, 2019 6:29 PM CST
Updated Nov 3, 2020 11:45 AM CST

10 minutes & 4 seconds read time

Sony is making it tremendously easy for developers to harness the raw 8K might of Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 console.

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In a recent interview with Dengeki Online, Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida confirms developers are smoothly transitioning their games onto the new high-end PlayStation 5. This strongly indicates the system shares the PS4's architecture and games-making tools, even if the PS5 uses AMD's new RDNA 2-powered Navi and Zen 2 CPU SoC.

Sony has gone through great lengths to ensure a kind of software and OS synergy between the two systems.

The PlayStation 5 might have full next-gen hardware, but it still borrows from the PS4 in an iterative fashion, mainly with native PS4 backward compatibility support, operating system functionality, and games-making toolsets.

It's extremely important that Sony make it easier than ever for developers to scale their games for both PS4 and PS5, complete with the latter's exclusive new enhancements like ray tracing lighting effects, 8K gaming output, and variable rate shading tech.

A good and flexible software pipeline is essential for devs pushing the PS5's hardware to its limits--being able to take code for games made on PS4 and scale them properly for the new PS5 is critical, especially since the PS4 will live alongside the PS5 for roughly three years after release.

That means devs could release two versions of their games: one for the current-gen, and one for next-gen.

All of the hardware--the 8-core, 16-thread 3GHz Zen 2 CPU and Navi 20 GPU, the super-fast SSD that might have customized ReRAM tech, and the GDDR6 RAM--is directly controlled by Sony's new flexible game-development scaling tools and operating system.

The tools will also allow devs to hit new performance threshold variances, including 4K 60FPS, 1080p 120FPS, 1080p 60FPS, and maybe even heavily upscaled 4K 120FPS, all with ray tracing, new clever rendering tricks like variable rate shading, native 4K textures, and new hardware methodologies like using the SSD as VRAM included.

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This isn't the first time we've heard developers praising the PlayStation 5's ease-of-use.

Sony's Jim Ryan says devs are giving lots of positive feedback on the PS5's devkits (those crazy stackable, v-shaped devkits) when it comes to scaling and flexibility.

"One thing that makes me particularly optimistic is, what we're hearing from developers and publishers, is the ease in which they are able to get code running on PlayStation 5 is way beyond any experience they've had on any other PlayStation platform," Ryan said in GamesIndustry.biz interview.

Making the PS5 so easy to develop games for solves a multitude of issues surrounding a next-gen console. It means PS4 game backward compatibility will be smoothly handled, complete with enhancement patches to harness the PlayStation 5's power. It also means developers will have to spend less time on decoding and deciphering the new hardware, leading to more time on optimizing their games for the platforms.

Sony is expected to reveal the PS5 in a special event in February 2020. The console will release in Holiday 2020, and it may cost $499.

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