Since the day Microsoft and Sony first started talking about their upcoming consoles right up until now, the one piece of information that has dominated nearly all conversations is their SSDs. The Xbox Series X / S and PS5 both launch with solid state drives, and we’ve heard plenty already about how developers will be able to leverage the new consoles’ SSDs to deliver much more expansive games.
Someone who agrees with that assertion is Christophe Gandon, managing director of games at Virtuos. Speaking recently in an interview with GamingBolt about how the transition from the current-gen to the next is shaping up from his perspective as a developer, Gandon said that with the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S, their solid state drives are much more exciting than their new processors or GPUs.
“The next generation of consoles mark a major step forward, but not in the way consumers/gamers are used to,” Gandon said. “With previous console generations, the main focus was on increasing the speed of the CPU and the GPU. This time, the jump in processor speed is not all that impressive.
“Instead, developers and gamers alike should be excited about the new SSD hard drive management. In-game assets can be accessed from memory much faster than ever before, which will affect both the way games look and the way games are designed. This will translate into denser worlds and little to no loading times.”
This, of course, isn’t the first time we’re hearing this about next-gen SSDs. Developers and publishers across the industry, both first and third party, have been stressing the point and talking about how SSDs can actually help change the way games are designed. It’ll probably be a couple of years before we actually see that happen, but the potential is definitely exciting.
In this same interview, Gandon also spoke to us about the PS5’s 3D audio engine and how he thinks it will help make games more immersive, and whether or not he thinks Xbox will eventually enter the VR space.
Our full interview with Gandon will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.
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