Astro's Playroom comparison appears to show Sony is still squeezing out every last drop of performance in the PlayStation 5 ahead of retail launch

Another demo run of Astro’s Playroom on the PS5, this time as part of the recent YouTube Gaming Week in Japan, has delivered an unexpected treat for PlayStation fans. It appears Sony has been busy improving the loading times for the game even further, either by optimizing the game itself or tweaking the celebrated I/O unit and SSD of the next-gen console…or both.

The platform game was originally taken for a spin by Geoff Keighley back in July, as part of a DualSense hands-on video. Astro’s Playroom was also a major part of the PS5 hands-on opportunity given to select Japanese vloggers, who seemed to get to play a version of the game that was noticeably quicker than Keighley’s when it came to loading.

A comparison gif that has been making the rounds on social media shows a loading scene for Astro’s Playroom that takes around nine seconds when Keighley was testing the game (on a PS5) in July. Now, in October, the same portion of the game appears to take only three seconds to load, with credit potentially going to a number of factors, including the game’s mechanics and the PS5’s I/O system.

However, like most things that seem remotely impressive with either next-gen console, there are those who will quickly try to debunk it for one reason or another. This time around, there are some claiming that the clip from the Japan event has been edited or cut to make it look quicker. Either way, the presence of an SSD in both the PS5 and Xbox Series X is still a huge generational leap compared to the eighth-generation consoles.

Rather than post the gif, we have embedded two videos below that compare the relevant loading screen within the first minute of each clip...and it can be clearly seen that the most recent video from the YouTube Gaming Week has Astro shooting through the tunnel to the Cooling Springs zone at a much quicker rate.