Sony has officially revealed the design of the PlayStation 5. After over an hour of PS5 game announcements, Sony finally revealed the hardware design after teasing it throughout today’s PS5 live event. To complement the new controller that will be included in the box, the PS5 console has a white and black appearance.
The PS5 will be available in two models, one with a 4K Blu-ray drive and the other with a pure Digital Edition, and will stand vertically like the Xbox Series X. Due to the removal of the optical drive, the PS5 without the drive appears to be significantly slimmer than the ordinary model.
The lack of a hard drive should make the PS5 Digital Edition cheaper as well, but Sony has yet to announce price. Sony just showed off the design during its live stream, but no specific release date or pricing for either PS5 type has been announced.
The PS5 can be put vertically or horizontally beneath a TV or monitor, just as the Xbox Series X. Sony has created a stand that works in either direction, while the Digital Edition of the PS5 appears to have a slightly different stand. The PS5 appears to have vents on the top for heat dissipation, as well as USB-A and USB-C connections on the front.
On its side, the PS5.
Horizontal PS5
Sony has also released a DualSense charging station, a new HD camera, a Pulse 3D wireless headset, and a media controller for the PlayStation 5. Sony has yet to reveal the price of any of its accessories, or whether they will all be available at the same time as the new PS5 systems.
Sony’s PS5 hardware design comes months after Microsoft unveiled the PC-like look of its next-gen system, the Xbox Series X, in December of this year.
Sony, like Microsoft, has been slowly releasing details about its next-generation PlayStation 5 in recent months. The console will be released over the holiday season and will be powered by an AMD Zen 2 CPU with eight cores and a bespoke AMD RDNA 2-based GPU. The unique AMD chips will produce 10.28 teraflops of power using variable frequencies on both the CPU and GPU, according to Sony’s March announcement.
Sony is also utilizing an unique SSD solution to improve game loading times. The SSD will have 825GB of capacity and a transfer rate of 5.5GB/s. To take advantage of the read speeds, Sony requires that all games be placed on the internal SSD. Epic Games has released a spectacular Unreal 5 tech demo for the PS5, demonstrating the loading of cinematic 8K materials as well as dynamic lighting effects. The PS5 will also have 8K graphics, 4K graphics with a refresh rate of 120Hz, and 3D audio.
Sony DualSense Image
On April 7th, Sony also revealed the DualSense controller for the PS5. Adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and a new create button for sharing gaming content are all included in the controller. The D-pad and buttons will stay on the top part of the controller, while the two analog sticks will be on the bottom, just as the company’s DualShock controllers. A center-mounted touchpad and a revamped light bar on each side of the touchpad will also be included in the DualSense.
The PS5 will also support the “vast majority” of the more than 4,000 PlayStation 4 games currently available. In March, Sony stated, “We expect backward compatible titles to run at a higher frequency on PS5 so that they may benefit from higher or more consistent frame rates and potentially higher resolutions.” Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is also coming to the PlayStation 5 this Christmas season, according to Ubisoft.
