- Jim Ryan, President & CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, said that the next PlayStation will have an improved rest mode that will greatly reduce the console's power consumption.
- Ryan shared the news while announcing a new partnership with the United Nations Environment committee. Sony has committed to reducing the carbon emissions of its products by using energy efficient technology.
- Though Sony has refrained from calling its new console the PlayStation 5, the next-generation PlayStation is expected to arrive during the 2020 holiday season.
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Sony continues to release new information about the next PlayStation console, bit by bit -the latest tidbit arrived alongside a climate change partnership announced by Sony Interactive Entertainment President & CEO Jack Ryan.
In a post on the official PlayStation blog, Ryan said the next generation PlayStation console will have an improved rest mode that uses significantly less energy than the PlayStation 4. Video game consoles and gaming computers have come under increased scrutiny from environmental activists for their high levels of energy consumption, and the way that they consume power even when not in use.
Rest mode allows the PlayStation 4 to suspend gameplay without turning off completely. In rest mode the console can maintain an internet connection and power its USB ports while using less energy than its fully-powered state, but it still uses a significant amount of energy. Ryan said the next PlayStation will use approximately 0.5W of energy in rest mode.
Sony is working with the United Nations Environment committee to reduce the carbon emissions of its products under a new partnership called the Playing for the Planet alliance. Sony says it has avoided nearly 16 million metric tons of carbon emissions by using energy efficient technology, and expects to increase that amount to 29 million over the next 10 years.
Sony has so far shied away from officially naming its next console the PlayStation 5, but we do expect it to arrive during the 2020 holiday season. Along with an improved rest mode, Sony has already promised that the new PlayStation will have vastly improved loading times thanks to a new solid state storage drive, and it will be capable of 8K resolution graphics with raytracing technology.
Patent images of what appear to be the PlayStation 5 development kit surfaced in late August, suggesting that video game companies are already working on titles for the upcoming console.
Microsoft has also teased similar features for its next console, which is codenamed Project Scarlett. The follow-up to the Xbox One is expected to arrive during the 2020 holiday season as well.