First confirmed details on the PlayStation 5 released and we now know it’s backwards compatible

The lead system architect confirmed some big details in an interview this week

It has been almost six years since Sony released the PlayStation 4, and while we have got the half-way-point-update PS4 Pro since then, it does feel like it has been a long time since the last console generation arrived. However, we also know that the next big console jump is set to take place pretty soon (but also not that soon, more likely to be close to Christmas 2020), and this week, PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny had a long chat with Wired, revealing some big nuggets of juicy info in the process. Before you go looking, no, an exact date and price haven't been revealed. Neither has what the console or its controllers will look like. Ditto for launch games, although the article does suggest that some of the upcoming biggies - such as Death Stranding and The Last Of Us 2 - will be multi-platform releases, heading out on both the PS4 and PS5. But now, for the stuff we do know... Firstly, the one that PS gamers have been calling out for ever since, well, the PS-One, is the fact that the PS5 will be backwards-compatible. Although, apparently, only with games on the PS4, so don't go holding out for your physical copies of PS-One, Two, or Three games to be playable on here. That being said, it was also confirmed that physical copies of PS5 (and PS4) games will still be playable on the console, putting to bed that the new console would be download and/or streaming only. Visually, the console will support 8K devices, so these games are going to look VERY pretty, and the audio aspect has been given a huge upgrade, with Cerny stating that "With the next console, the dream is to show how dramatically different the audio experience can be when we apply significant amounts of hardware horsepower to it." Additionally, Cerny showed off the console's new Solid State Drive (SSD), which is something that can hugely upgrade the play speed of your games. For the demonstration, they played Marvel's Spider-Man, and on the PS4, the fast-travel option between locations can take up to 15 seconds at a time. On the PS5, it took 0.8 seconds. All clips via PlayStation