We’re all excited for the PlayStation 5, so it may not be much of a surprise to hear that developers are excited for the console as well. Talking to Official PlayStation Magazine, Control’s lead programmer Sean Donnelly talked about how the PlayStation 5’s improved hardware could really benefit games. Specifically, he mentions that the SSD is the part he’s most excited about, freeing up bandwidth in the CPU for other functions.
When it comes to the PS5, faster hardware is always appreciated and will make life easier in the short term. But it’s the new SSD that really stands out; essentially streaming will become something that we don’t really have to worry so much about and it will free up some extra CPU bandwidth in the process.
Control‘s technical director, Mike Vehkala, also specifically praised the SSD. He points out that data streaming with a regular hard drive is a bottleneck (due to the way the disk and internal reader head work) and with an SSD this doesn’t exist. He notes that Control could have features like a richer world and better destruction physics thanks to an SSD. He also points out there could be simple quality of life improvements to games, noting instant reloads after dying as an example.
Comms director Thomas Puha also echos these statements. While he didn’t specifically mention the SSD, he did note that the PlayStation 5 is about “making a really smooth, quick-to-load experience,” which is something an SSD really helps with.
The SSD seems to be one of the most mentioned components of the PlayStation 5, especially by developers. (Editor’s Note: Granted, at this point, it’s one of the few components Sony has talked publicly about so far.) In an interview with Wired, Sony detailed just how the SSD could be used to help game development and lead to faster load times, smaller file sizes, and more detailed open worlds. In the same interview, Marco Trush, president of Bluepoint Games, said that the SSD was the feature he personally was most excited for. Developers from Novarama have also gone on record saying it’s a big deal for them.
[Source: Official PlayStation Magazine issue 169 via GamesRadar+]
