The PS5 launches this November, with Sony finally having revealed the price and release information of the console. Next-gen is now within touching distance, and while many will be ready to dive right into it right off the bat, quite a few are probably still going to be on the fence. So here, we’ve compiled all the crucial information that you need to know about the PS5 so you can make an informed purchasing decision. Without further ado, let’s get started.
LAUNCH
We’ve known that the PS5 will be releasing in Holiday 2020 for a while, but Sony have now officially confirmed the exact release date of the console (at long last). And as many expected, it’s going to be a bit of a staggered launch. On November 12, the PS5 will launch in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. In the rest of the world, the console will go on sale on November 19.
PRICE
How much exactly is the PS5 going to cost though? Well, it’s about what you’d have expected, if you’ve been following all the recent speculation about prices. The flagship PS5 SKU will cost $499 / €499 / £ 449 / ¥ 49,980. Meanwhile, the PS5 Digital Edition will be priced at $399 / €399 / £ 359 / ¥ 39,980.
DIMENSIONS
The PS5 has looked like a big boy since the moment Sony first unveiled it in June, and recently, they officially confirmed the console’s exact dimensions as well. The console’s dimensions have been confirmed as 390 mm x 104 mm x 260 mm. It will weigh approximately 4.5 kg. Meanwhile, the PS5 Digital Edition will be slightly smaller and lighter, as you’d expect. It weighs approximately 3.9 kg, and its dimensions are 390 mm x 92 mm x 260 mm.
ACCESSORIES
When the PS5 launches this November, it will also be accompanied by quite a few accessories coming from Sony itself. There’s the Pulse 3D wireless headset, built for 3D audio, which will also have a noise cancelling microphone. There’s the HD Camera, which will have dual 1080p lenses. There’s the Media Remote- which is pretty self-explanatory. Finally, there’s the DualSense charging station, which will be able to charge up to two controllers at a time.
ACCESSORIES’ PRICES
How much will these accessories cost though? If you want to purchase a standalone DualSense controller, that’ll set you back $70. The Pulse 3D headset will be priced at $100, the HD Camera at $60, the DualSense charging station and media remote at $30 each.
FIRST PARTY LAUNCH TITLES
We’ve been wondering what games the PS5 will be launching with for a while, and Sony have now officially confirmed the full extent of first party games that will be available on the console at launch. These include Bluepoint and Sony Japan’s Demon’s Souls remake, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (which will also include a remaster of the first Spidey game in the Ultimate Edition), Destruction AllStars, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Astro’s Playroom (which will be pre-installed on every PS5).
THIRD PARTY LAUNCH TITLES
While we know exactly which first party games will be available on the PS5 at launch, things are a little less clear as far as third party launch titles go. We know for a fact that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Godfall are going to be a launch title, but beyond that, it’s all educated guesses. The likes of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, DiRT 5, and Watch Dogs: Legion are confirmed as launch titles for the Xbox Series X and Series S, and those two consoles are releasing on November 10- so we can probably expect them to be available on the PS5 on November 12 as well.
CROSS-GEN GAMES
Unsurprisingly, quite a few of the PS5’s games are going to be available on PS4 as well. From the launch lineup, the likes of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, DiRT 5, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Watch Dogs: Legion are all cross-gen releases. Meanwhile, even first party games like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure have been confirmed to be releasing on the PS4. The most surprising news to come from Sony following their recent event, however, was that Horizon Forbidden West – due out in 2021 – will also be releasing for both PS4 and PS5. Meanwhile, third party 2021 releases like Hitman 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Gotham Knights are all also cross-gen games.
UPCOMING RELEASES
The PS5 has a solid launch lineup, but quite a few games have also been confirmed for release beyond 2020. Immortals Fenyx Rising is releasing in December, Hitman 3 releases in January 2021, and Far Cry 6 will be out the following month. Resident Evil Village is coming some time next year, Final Fantasy 16 was recently confirmed as a 2021 title, Kena: Bridge of Spirits was recently delayed into 2021, while Gotham Knights and Hogwarts Legacy are also coming next year. Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo, which are going to be PS5 console exclusives, also launch in 2021. Sony itself is also releasing some big hitters for the PS5 next year, including Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, Horizon Forbidden West, and the next God of War game, which was recently teased. Meanwhile, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League launches in 2022, as does Capcom’s Pragmata– though those are still a ways out yet. Gran Turismo 7 is also in development, but that doesn’t yet have a release date.
CPU
Now that we’ve spoken about the PS5’s launch and upcoming games as ell as its accessories and pricing, let’s focus on its hardware and what exactly that will entail, beginning with the CPU. The PS5 will feature a semi-custom Zen 2 CPU of 8 cores and 16 threads. It will run at a variable frequency of up to 3.5 GHz.
GPU
When it comes to the GPU, the PS5 is lagging behind its direct competitor, the Xbox Series X, but still has some impressive specs on offer. It has 36 compute units running at a variable frequency of up to 2.23 GHz, while the total compute power comes up to 10.28 teraflops.
RAM
The RAM is often the most critical part of a console, and will of course be crucial as we move into the next generation, and the PS5, it seems, is starting off on a strong note here. The console has a 16 GB GDDR6 RAM, and unlike the Xbox Series X and Series S, it will have a single unified memory pool. That pool will have a bandwidth of 448 GB/s.
SSD
The one aspect of the PS5 Sony have highlighted more than anything else since the moment they first started talking about the console is its solid state drive. Billed as the fastest SSD on the market, it will offer storage space of 825 GB, but it’s its speed that’s most impressive, offering an uncompressed bandwidth of 5.5 GB/s and a compressed bandwidth of 9 GB/s.
DUALSENSE
While Microsoft are going with iteration for the new Xbox controller, Sony are going with innovation. The DualSense is going to be similar to the DualShock 4 in layout, and will also have a touchpad and built-in microphone and all the other bells and whistles the PS4’s controller did, but comes with two key new features. The first of these is haptic feedback, which promises to offer deeper immersion through highly programmable rumble feedback. The second is adaptive triggers, which will offer resistance and tension that will adjust based on what’s happening in the game you’re playing.
3D AUDIO
One more aspect of the PS5 Sony have been emphasizing quite a lot alongside its SSD and the DualSense’s capabilities is the Tempest, its 3D audio engine. Audio is a crucial element in any game, and the PS5 is promising 3D audio that will heighten immersion more than ever before. How well this will be used by developers remains to be seen, but the potential is quite exciting.
HIGHER-PRICED GAMES
We’ve been hearing about prices of next-gen games going higher for a while, and it’s looking like more and more publishers are going to hop aboard that train. 2K have already taken the first step with NBA 2K21’s next-gen versions, while Activision have done so with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War as well. Ubisoft’s 2020 releases will all release for the standard $60 price, but they’ve been silent about their games beyond that. Capcom, meanwhile, have been undecided so far. Notably, Sony have also confirmed that their next-gen first party games will release for standard prices of $70. With the exception of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (which will have a Standard Edition of $50 and an Ultimate Edition of $70), the likes Demon’s Souls, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Destruction AllStars will all be sold for $70.
RAY-TRACING, FRAME RATES, AND RESOLUTION
Higher resolutions and frame rates are going to be a must for all next-gen games, and the PS5 looks set to deliver on that front. It’s confirmed that the PS5 is going to feature support for hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, while 4K and 60 FPS are going to be increasingly common in PS5 games, and some might even go up to 120 FPS. DiRT 5, for instance, has a 120 FPS mode, while Sony have confirmed that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart will both have 60 FPS options. Supposedly, the PS5 is also capable of delivering 8K visuals, but it remains to be seen whether that’s actually practical, or just something it can technically do on paper.
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