PlayStation 5 review – Sony’s new console makes a splashy entrance
This enormous spaceship of a console comes with enough flagship features - from fast SSD and frame rate to 4K resolution - that you might overlook the hefty price tag
With more than 110m PlayStation 4s sold, Sony is coming into the next console generation with nothing to prove. But the company has squandered goodwill before: it followed up the beloved PlayStation 2 with an awkward-looking, difficult-to-develop-for console that cost the equivalent of 600 in today's money. It took PlayStation 3 almost a decade and several remodels to make up the ground it had lost. The PlayStation 5 certainly looks wild next to the modernist oblong that is PS4, but this is no conceptual experiment in hardware design. It is a console that wants to make you feel good, to celebrate the time, money and passion we expend on video games.
The console itself is a statement object. Standing vertically, its white casing tapers to a V around the shiny black body of the machine. It is enormous and looks like a futuristic spaceship. The new DualSense controller is white with black accents, a slightly different shape from the PS4 pad that feels equally comfortable in the hands. The texturing on the grips comes in the form of tiny circle-square-triangle-cross symbols that you can see only if you zoom in on a high-res photo - a cool hidden design secret indicative of the thought that has gone into the PS5's appearance.
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