Sony's Mark Cerny has recently announced the existence of PS5 along with its specs. However, Cerny vaguely noted that the next console would be slightly more expensive due to the new feature that they're going to introduce with the console. Is Sony really getting ahead of the console competition or themselves?
According to HeisenbergFX4's thread on Neogaf, Wired's Peter Rubin posted on Twitter about Cerny's answer about the PS5's pricing. The new PS5 is expected to use the "ray tracing" feature in processing its graphics. This new feature is an improvement as big budget Hollywood movies often use this technology to present their films.
However, Cerny confirmed that the new PS5 would have an additional value added to the console due to the new feature added. Adding up with the new feature, its new top-of-the-line specs would also spike up its price. The PS5 is speculated to be priced around $500 in light of its previous blunders with its consoles.
While the PS4 was widely successful on its release, its predecessor, PS3, had problems on its first release. Since Sony enjoyed success on the PS2, the company rode off with the success and released console with a stronger hardware, namely the PS3. However, many developers didn't want to dabble with the new technology and rival companies such as Nintendo and Microsoft have overtaken in its slump.
While Sony was able to recover in later part of its PS3's years and early PS4, it also had another problem with introducing a stronger game platform that eventually lost to its competition. The next generation of the PlayStation Portable handheld device, PS Vita, was also vastly superior in hardware than the Nintendo 3DS and other handhelds at the time. However, Sony had to slowly cut the support for the PS Vita as the company also failed to attract many developers on the platform. The PS Vita was noted to be a "niche" device with select exclusive games that still lost despite its strength.
Lastly, the most recent PS4 Pro's 4K graphics specialty failed to attract many adopters with its new features. As the display monitors connected to the PS4 needed to have 4K capabilities, the PS4 Pro had similar use as the first versions of PS4. While it wasn't a failure, Sony's innovation on technology just seems to miss its mark.
Potentially, the PS5's increased price with the "ray tracing" feature might cause a familiar problem if it spikes the new console's price too high up. For now, we can only hope that Sony doesn't get too ahead of itself with its pricing as it moves forward against the console gaming competition.
This article was first published in IBTimes US. Permission required for reproduction.
