Unreal Engine 5 maker Epic Games has said that it has been discussing next-gen (well, now current-gen) hardware with Sony for the last 3-4 years, during which Epic received early access to the PlayStation 5. According to CEO Tim Sweeney, his company’s conversations with Sony architect Mark Cerny weren’t just limited to graphics. The partners were keen on revolutionizing storage architecture, which can limit game development.
“It was three or four years ago at least when we started to talk with Mark Cerny about possibilities for the next generation,” Sweeney told EDGE/GamesRadar. “And Sony really did a fantastic job of implementing a new platform around that realization that storage could be revolutionized. PlayStation 5 is built not only on a huge body of flash memory, but also a very high bandwidth and low latency framework for accessing it, and for getting it to wherever you need for any type of work.”
Sony and Epic were collaborating long before the Xbox Series X came into the picture, which is part of the reason Unreal Engine 5 was showcased on the PS5.
“Rendering micropolygons resulting from a 20 billion-polygon scene is hard enough. But actually being able to get that data into memory is a critical challenge,” Epic’s VP of engineering, Nick Penwarden, said while discussing the PS5’s SSD and input-output system. “And as a result of the years of discussions and efforts leading up to that, it was a perfect opportunity to partner [with Sony] to show that effort finally coming to fruition with pixels on the screen.”
The full interview details Unreal Engine 5’s capabilities and future possibilities so make sure to check it out.
[Source: GamesRadar]
