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It's been a rough few weeks for PlayStation owners. First, new figures from Sony revealed that 50% of all PlayStation gamers would be unable to play GTA 6 at launch, and now, the Japanese technology giant has quietly ditched a prominent claim about its PS5 console four years after it launched worldwide.
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Sony has refreshed the packaging used for its PlayStation 5 console to remove the claim that it supports 8K resolution. As the name suggests, 8K boasts twice the resolution as 4K Ultra HD, which packs 4x as many pixels as High Definition (HD). That's an incredible amount of detail — and thus requires a vast amount of processing grunt to refresh that resolution, usually 7,680 × 4,320 pixels, every second during fast-paced gameplay.
Listings for the PS5 Slim variants, which launched at the end of last year, on online retailers like Amazon still include the original packaging with its claim of 8K gaming
AMAZON | GBN
Bafflingly, Sony redesigned both variants of its PlayStation console last year under the Slim Model moniker. At launch, the packaging for these reworked designs still included the claim that the console supports 8K.
It's not entirely clear when Sony decided to ditch the box for its best-selling console to reflect the lack of support for the pixel-packed resolution.
While online retailers like Amazon, Currys, and AO.com still show the previous packaging for the Sony PS5 with the 8K claim, none of the packaging down on Sony’s own PlayStation Direct store carry the icon.
However, a new PS5 box is shown on Sony's own online store which removes the 8K logo from the packaging
SONY | GBN
Ahead of the launch of the first-generation PlayStation 5, Sony started to brand a number of its Smart TVs that support 8K and 120 frames-per-second, enabled by HDMI 2.1 connections, as "PS5 ready". This brand started to appear on store shelves as early as July 2020, suggesting that its all-new console would take full advantage of both the high refresh-rate and the pixel-packed resolution.
In a blog post for Frequently Asked Questions about the PlayStation 5, Sony answered the question "What resolutions are supported?" by stating:
"PS5 does not require a 4K TV. Supported resolutions are 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and 2160p. PS5 can output resolutions up to 2160p (4K UHD) when connected to a 4K display.
"PS5 is compatible with 8K displays at launch, and after a future system software update will be able to output resolutions up to 8K when content is available, with supported software."
The first video game compatible with an 8K resolution to launch on PlayStation 5 was puzzler The Touryst, which launched in October 2021. However, Sony never delivered the promised "future system software update" to enable 8K output from the console.
Whispers suggest Sony has been working on a more powerful PS5 Pro console that'll launch ready for the Christmas shopping rush this year. The upgraded PlayStation 5 could be timed to take advantage of the excitement around the incoming Grand Theft Auto VIfrom Rockstar Games, which has now confirmed a 2025 release date. It's unclear whether this new console will arrive with fully-fledged support for an 8K resolution.
