We Finally Know What The PS5 Looks Like
With Sony's "Future of Gaming" show now officially in the books, it's safe to say we got a lot more than we were expecting with regard to the PlayStation 5. There's a new Spider-Man title coming in Holiday 2020. There's a new Gran Turismo. We're getting a new entry in the Ratchet & Clank series. Demon's Souls is getting a remake. And yes, robot dinosaur fans – Horizon Forbidden West was officially announced and shown off. All of that was in addition to the slew of third-party titles Sony put on display. It was a jam-packed show, to be sure.
While it was great to see the games that'll be running on the PS5, though, something was still missing. Up until the event, we hadn't seen the console itself. Microsoft surprised everyone by revealing the Xbox Series X back at The Game Awards in December. Would Sony finally give fans what they've been craving for months — a glimpse of the system they'll be playing on?
The answer was yes. After keeping the design of the console under wraps for entirely too long, Sony officially pulled the curtain back and showed the world what the PlayStation 5 looks like.
The design definitely has people talking.
If you thought the look of the DualSense controller might have been a hint about the look of the PS5, pat yourself on the back — you were right. The two-tone color scheme of the DualSense makes an appearance on the console and creates what one viewer called a "reverse ice cream sandwich." There's a black inner section that looks to contain a few buttons and ports, a white outer shell that houses the disc drive, and blue lighting between the black and white areas of the machine. When placed side by side, the designs of both the PS5 and the DualSense definitely go hand in hand.
What might surprise you most, however, is just how curvy the PlayStation 5 is. There are very few flat surfaces on the machine. Instead, both the black and white sections have varying degrees of thickness, and the white outer portions of the console feature some pretty intense slopes on both sides. If you intend to lay the PS5 down horizontally, it doesn't look like you'll be able to do it without a stand. The included stand looks curvy enough itself to get the job done — whether the whole package will fit into your entertainment center is another question.
And believe it not, Sony wasn't done there, as the company didn't just show off one console, but two. There's a "Digital Edition" PlayStation 5 set to release later this year, as well, that omits the Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive and loses a bit of bulk from where that drive rests in the original design. If we had to guess, the digital version of the PS5 will be a little bit cheaper than the normal version of the console. How much remains to be seen. We can say, though, that the Digital Edition will be on par in terms of power with its sibling. So if you have no need for discs and would rather build a digital collection of PS5 titles, you might be able to get a less-expensive PS5 that otherwise performs exactly the same.
Unfortunately, the cost of the PlayStation 5 continues to elude us. Sony elected not to put a price tag on the console during the show, which means it could be a few more months before we get any news on that front. Still, what we did get should be enough to hold fans over. There's an impressive slate of exclusives and third-party projects on the way. Some of those exclusives are coming a lot sooner than anyone might've guessed. And yes, we finally have images of the PlayStation 5 itself.
All eyes now will be on Microsoft to see how Sony's next-gen competitor responds. Team Xbox is set to hold an event in July that'll showcase a number of Xbox Series X titles, including Halo Infinite. Outside of some surprise announcements, though, we know pretty much everything there is to know about the Series X. We'll have to wait and see if Microsoft has an answer for what Sony showed off during the "Future of Gaming" show, or if Sony stole the spotlight leading up to the launches of both the Series X and PlayStation 5.
We'll undoubtedly get more PS5 news in the weeks and months ahead, so stay tuned.