Former Insomniac Games/Naughty Dog designer states that the PlayStation 5 SSD will help in breaking the crunch culture. This crunch time pressure is prevalent in most AAA game studios these days.
If you have been living under a rock, Sony Interactive Entertainment recently revealed the PlayStation 5 specs. Ever since the reveal, developers have been raving about the PS5’s SSD. James Cooper, former Insomniac/Naughty Dog designer seems to have become part of that ever-growing list of fans.
Cooper recently took to this Twitter account to praise the PlayStation 5’s storage solution. According to him, game developers will not have to worry about micro-management:
In theory, the #PS5’s SSD means developers can worry a little less about level streaming and memory micro-management which is a huge time sink late on in the dev cycle and the source of many bugs. This means it might actually help to reduce crunch!
Cooper is referring to the IO throughput of the PlayStation 5. Sony Interactive Entertainment’s next-gen console will be capable of an IO throughput of 5.5Gbps for raw data and 8-9 Gbps for the compressed data. What this means is that game developers can stop worrying about the pressure caused by micro-managing memory and level streaming.
This will definitely help to break the crunch culture that most AAA developers are notorious for. Naughty Dog is especially known for forcing game designers to work long hours.
The PS5’s SSD storage solution seems to have won over more game developers than actual consumers. On the surface, this doesn’t seem promising for the PlayStation platform. The Xbox Series X seems to have taken a lead in the next-gen console war going by the hardware specs alone.
However, if you think about it, keeping game developers happy could pay off for Sony in the long run. Most game designers would be willing to develop games for the PS5 because it will be easier and less time consuming. Maybe Sony knew that they couldn’t beat their competition when it comes to raw performance.
To counter that, they shifted their efforts to creating a developer-friendly platform. This will ensure more first-party exclusives for the PlayStation 5 and that could turn the tide in Sony’s favor. Only time will tell if the PS5’s SSD specifications are as significant as game developers are making them out to be.
