Just like Microsoft, Sony is currently gearing up to release its PlayStation 5 next month, with a November 12 launch in seven countries including the US, with the rest of the world to follow a week later. Sony waited until June to reveal its PlayStation 5 console and its Digital Edition variant, and the company is following today with a teardown video of the regular PlayStation 5 with a disc drive.
“Our team values a well thought out, beautifully designed architecture, explained Masayasu Ito, EVP, Hardware Engineering and Operation, Sony Interactive Entertainment. “Inside the console is an internal structure looking neat and tidy, which means that there aren’t any unnecessary components and the design is efficient. As a result, we’re able to achieve our goal of creating a product with a high degree of perfection and quality.”
We’ve seen the first teardown videos of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X back in March, which showed the software giant opting for a vertical chassis housing a split motherboard. Sony opted for a more traditional design for its PlayStation 5, though some details are quite interesting. The console actually looks pretty easy to tear down, and Sony showed for the first time how the console will support expandable storage through a standardised M.2 interface with PCI 4.0 support.
As a reminder, Microsoft opted for proprietary 1TB expansion cards that will provide the same performance as the Xbox Series X/S SSD, with prices starting at $219.99 for the first 1TB expansion card designed by Seagate. However, the company announced last month that cheaper storage expansion cards from other manufacturers could be on the way.
This PlayStation 5 teardown video also showed that the console will use a massive heat sink as well as liquid metal to guarantee high cooling performance. “We had to balance every aspect of the system, from focusing on reducing the noise level to enhancing the cooling capacity, more than ever before,” wrote Masayasu Ito.
If Microsoft has already sent many Xbox Series X prototypes to select journalists and YouTubers, it seems that Sony has yet to do the same. We still don’t know how the console compares next to the Xbox Series X in terms of fan noise and power consumption, and we also haven’t seen anything about the PlayStation 5 operating system yet.
The PlayStation 5 will be Sony’s biggest console ever, and it probably will take some time to get used to its design. Again, the in-depth comparisons with the Xbox Series X should be very interesting, especially since Microsoft will once again keep the power advantage it has had since the launch of the Xbox One X three years ago.
