What you need to know
- Epic revealed 9 minutes of Unreal Engine 5 footage running on PS5 in real-time.
- Tim Sweeney praised the capabilities of the PlayStation 5.
- Sony's machine is set to release holiday 2020.
During Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest reveal, Epic unveiled 9 minutes of Unreal Engine 5 running in real-time on PlayStation 5. In an interview after the tech demo, Keighley spoke with some Epic developers, including founder Tim Sweeney, about what the next-generation of consoles means for game studios. Sweeney then went on to praise the PS5, specifically its SSD.
This really is a generational leap, or more, in technological capabilities. The hardware that Sony is launching is absolutely phenomenal. Not only an unprecedented amount of graphics power but also a completely new storage architecture that blows past architectures out of the water, and is far ahead of even the state-of-the-art and highest-end PCs you can buy.
Sweeney went on to call the PS5's storage system "world class, not only the best in class in console, but also the best on any platform." The technology that Sony is building with PlayStation 5 and what Epic is building with Unreal Engine 5 should pave the way for new types of games experiences that audiences can't even anticipate yet.
Unreal Engine 5 will be available in preview in early 2021, with a full release slated for late 2021. It will support next-generation consoles, current-generation consoles, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Developers will be able to move projects created in UE4 to UE5 freely whenever they are ready.
Sony expects to release the PlayStation 5 holiday 2020, around the same time Microsoft is set to release the Xbox Series X.
