Welcome to another article about unfounded rumors about the PS5. I cannot overstate this enough – this is a RUMOR. There is literally nothing to back this up. I still like reading them and sharing them with you. Put on your tinfoil hat, because this one is juicy.
According to an article on Comicbook.com, the PS5 is “in serious trouble”. Citing from a tweet from Jeff Rickel, a self-proclaimed person who knows people “developing directly for Sony”, developers are not happy with the PS5’s hardware. They think Sony underestimated Microsoft and undershot the hardware. The weaker specs were the result of hubris as the market leader, and now they are rushing to release.
Here’s where we get to the interesting part. The PS5 is harder for devs to optimize for some troubling reasons. The power produced by the hardware is inconsistent. It can run in short bursts only, and Sony hasn’t been able to confirm exactly what the consistent power will be. Devs supposedly don’t know how to optimize for something like this, but it’s the next thing that’s going to be a real problem. As that power ramps up, so does the heat, and the PS5 is overheating and failing.
It gets worse. Sony’s current design for the consumer unit can’t handle the heat, and they are thinking about a redesign. The tweet states that they could rush to market with a design that will have a lot of issues and release an updated model later. The other option is to delay the release by 6-12 months to fix the design but cede a headstart to Microsoft. If true (and I cannot stress the if part enough), it would be really bad either way.
As far as I know, Jeff Rickel is just some dude on the internet, but journalists Daniel Rubino and Jez Corden of Windows Central are backing up the claim. Yeah, they may be more pro-Microsoft, but maybe they have an inside source. According to Daniel, Jez has “heard similar things from others too”. Daniel retweeted the post to see if there was any actual proof, or if it was, as I’m reporting it, only rumor.
To be fair, we haven’t seen a PS5 yet, and it’s April. We have a GDC tech talk from Mark Cerny about the theoretical and aspirational, but we don’t have a final physical design or games. This could be wild speculation and devs coming to grips with new hardware, and it probably is. Until Sony decides to show us the real hardware, people are only going to continue to speculate. I don’t think the PS5 should be pressured into a reveal, but they’re not doing themselves any favors here. Rumors like this are going to keep flying until Sony decides to show us the actual design and games.
With that in mind, why do you think they haven’t shown the hardware yet?
FUD or legit concerns about Sony’s PlayStation 5 having issues?
Anyone following this stuff, talking to game devs and people in-the-know have been hearing similar rumblings for months now. This just summarize it well.
Sony may have overshot (and underestimated) Microsoft. pic.twitter.com/geUAsE4oBB— Daniel Rubino (@Daniel_Rubino) April 2, 2020
