Sony has revealed that its next gaming console, predictably called the PlayStation 5, will be out in time for the 2020 Christmas holiday season.

Little else is known about the console, other than some vague details that were reported back in April, but PlayStation boss Jim Ryan took the time to explain in-depth how innovative the controllerd for the next-gen console will be.

“One of our goals with the next generation is to deepen the feeling of immersion when you play games, and we had the opportunity with our new controller to reimagine how the sense of touch can add to that immersion”, said Ryan, writing on the PlayStation Blog. “With haptics, you truly feel a broader range of feedback, so crashing into a wall in a race car feels much different than making a tackle on the football field. You can even get a sense for a variety of textures when running through fields of grass or plodding through mud.”

‘The second innovation is something we call adaptive triggers, which have been incorporated into the trigger buttons (L2/R2)’, continued Ryan. ‘Developers can program the resistance of the triggers so that you feel the tactile sensation of drawing a bow and arrow or accelerating an off-road vehicle through rocky terrain. In combination with the haptics, this can produce a powerful experience that better simulates various actions.”

With the future of gaming seemingly heading towards a streaming model, many are speculating that Sony’s PlayStation 5, as well as Microsoft’s next Xbox offering, will effectively be the final hardware platforms to hit the market.