If you’ve been keeping up with what PlayStation has been doing with the PS5, you’ll know that the console has been getting a steady weight loss regime over the years. Though these usually come with less obvious changes on the outside, at least until August when a clip showing off the latest changes showed up on the internet. Now, the company has officially revealed the new look of the PS5, proving said leak right.
The official figures for the volume reduction for the redesigned PS5 is 30%, and weight loss being in between 18% and 24%. Which kind of makes sense that the console is only about 5cm shorter than before, but again, it’s difficult to tell without a side-by-side comparison.
This official announcement also proves the rumour from last year that the redesigned PS5 will come with a detachable optical drive. While it still mostly looks the same on the outside, underneath the now segmented covers is the non-integrated drive which looks to be easily removable. This does mean that if you buy the digital edition console with this design, it is possible to convert it into the standard edition for a price, but we’ll get to that later.
But probably more important than any of these is the fact that the redesigned PS5 sports a bigger capacity SSD. It’s not by much, but the revamped console will feature a full 1TB SSD for its internal storage, compared to the odd 825GB of the launch models. While this does mean that you’ll get slightly over 800GB of usable space once system files are taken into consideration, it still beats the original 664GB.
That’s it for the good news though, so now we get to the bad stuff, starting with the stand. Currently, the PS5 comes with something that can be used as both a horizontal and vertical stand. According to the announcement blog post, the redesigned models though will only come with a horizontal stand in the box. A more general vertical stand, which also got its own redesign, is now sold separately. On a related note, redesigned console covers are also on the way, but will only be available in 2024.
Now, onto the prices of the redesigned PS5. The announcement blog post lists the same price as the launch model, which is US$499.99 for the standard edition and US$449.99 for the digital edition. With this, it’s probably safe to say that they will sport the same price as current models when they arrive on our shores. As for the optical drive, this is priced at US$79.99 (~RM378). No word on local pricing yet, but there’s a chance that it won’t cost more to convert a digital edition console to the standard edition when they arrive on our shores. And finally, the new vertical stand will cost US$29.99 (~RM142).
(Source: PlayStation)
