Sony announced some good news for prospective PS5 console buyers by confirming it won't cost users as much money to run thanks to new energy saving features
PlayStation might have opted to forgo talking about the PS5 in their most recent State of Play broadcast, but the company were still forthcoming with some big news about the console this week.
So far Sony has given fans small glimpses of info about the tech that's going into the next-gen machine, from talking about Ray-Tracing to even the improved load times of the machine.
Unfortunately, we're unlike to see or head anything substantial about next-gen specs for some months yet.
But whilst all those fancy features are no doubt of paramount importance to gamers, for mums, dads and the people who pay the bills, there's been some fantastic news delivered by Sony this week.
And it's all to do with the price of the machine in the long run and the overall cost of running your PS5, which could work out significantly less than modern consoles in 2019.
Earlier this week Sony executive Jim Ryan posted a new entry on the PlayStation Blog, and it was all geared towards working together with the United Nations to combat climate change.
More specifically the Sony exec pledged to lower the company's carbon footprint with some innovative new initiatives; both for the company and the everyday console user.
"At SIE, we have made substantial commitments and efforts to reduce the power consumption of the PS4 by utilising efficient technologies such as System-on-a-Chip architecture integrating a high-performance graphics processor, die shrink, power scaling, as well as energy-saving modes such as Suspend-to-RAM.
"For context, we estimate the carbon emissions we have avoided to date already amount to almost 16 million metric tons, increasing to 29 million metric tons over the course of the next 10 years (which equals the CO2 emissions for the nation of Denmark in 2017).
"I am also very pleased to announce the next-generation PlayStation console will include the possibility to suspend gameplay with much lower power consumption than PS4 (which we estimate can be achieved at around 0.5 W).
"If just one million users enable this feature, it would save equivalent to the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes."
For context, we reported some years back the PlayStation 4 consumes the greatest amount of electricity per hour at 285 watts, closely followed by the Xbox at 254 watts.
In contrast, old favourites produced in the 1990s, such as the Sega Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and Sony’s first PlayStation, all consume less than 150 watts per hour.
It's possible these have changed in the years gone past, as energyusecalculator.com now reports that a base model now uses 90-150 watts, compared to 75-160 for the PS4 Pro.
even then, a commitment to use "around 0.5 W" when suspending gameplay is a great result, and will no doubt also help family's save the coffers when people are spending hours upon hours playing the latest games.
On top of the promise to lower their carbon footprint, Sony also agreed to look at their own facilities (such as data centres) and company operations to see who they can do more to bring their own expenditure down.
"From an operations point of view, we will complete a carbon footprint assessment of our gaming services and will report the energy efficiency measures we employ at our data centers," Ryan added.
"We are committed to informing consumers of energy-efficient console set-up and use. Our commitments are not only related to hardware and operations, we are also keen to help inform people interested in sustainability goals.
"We have committed to working with the industry and climate experts to develop reference information for use by game developers that wish to include sustainability themes in games. In addition, we will investigate potential PS VR applications that can raise awareness of climate issues and climate experts."
It's plausible that the PS5 will contain a lower power consumption when the gameplay is suspended because when it is running it's going to be an absolute beast.
Let's not forget, the next-gen console is expected to support 8K resolution, ray-tracing technology and likely many more features that push the limits of the hardware.
The only confirmed tech improvement we've actually seen so far comes from video some months back filmed by The Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki.
For those who don't recall, the video (seen above) - filmed at an on-stage presentation that was likely meant for Sony’s investors and business partners only.
It showed the console in action, playing a small section from the PS4 exclusive game, Marvel's Spider-Man.
what was really interesting is that the demo took 8.1 seconds to load on a PS4 Pro, but less than a second (0.083 seconds to be precise) to load on the new console hardware.
Based on this small demo, it's undeniable that the machine will be a workhorse, so any means Sony can reduce the costs of running the machine will no doubt be welcome from fans and families.
PS5 and Microsoft's Xbox Scarlett consoles are both expected to launch late 2020.