Likely, Sony’s new PlayStation 5 feature isn’t just about energy savings, so the company may have broader plans beyond simple efficiency.

On their weekly podcast, the editors at Digital Foundry discussed the PlayStation 5’s new energy-saving mode, which has already appeared in a beta firmware release. They emphasized that improving the system’s energy efficiency is probably not the main purpose. Rumors suggest that some of the mode’s limitations—such as significantly reduced memory bandwidth—will have a substantial impact on system performance, meaning that the most demanding games could run poorly in Power Saver mode unless developers step in to optimize them. If energy efficiency were the sole objective, it would demand a lot from developers just to target this setting.

Power Saver mode doesn’t make much sense, as it’s unlikely anyone would throttle their console simply for marginal energy savings, especially when the difference is expected to be minimal. Interestingly, Microsoft’s energy efficiency solution on Xbox Series suggests that the true goal of PlayStation 5’s Power Saver mode may be something else entirely.

For example, in Fortnite, Microsoft made some tweaks to boost energy efficiency without requiring developer intervention: they lowered the main menu’s frame rate to save power when the system is idle, and changed dynamic resolution scaling without impacting the gameplay experience. So, a complete system-wide energy efficiency overhaul seems to put a burden on developers, while providing little real benefit to end users.

Accordingly, Digital Foundry believes that the new Power Saver mode on PlayStation 5 exists to provide developers with some spec targets for a future device. Launching a low-power PlayStation 5, similar to the Xbox Series S, mid-generation seems illogical—and the reduced memory bandwidth strongly hints that this mode could be tied to a potential future handheld device. Rumor has it that Sony is working on just such a product.

Source: WCCFTech