News about the PS5 has been pretty scattered and vague for the most part, so to make it easier for everyone who is invested, we’ve put together this article that covers the variety of things everyone needs to know about the PS5 right now.
Pre-ordering the PS5
Despite alluding to it so many times, Sony only revealed the PlayStation 5 to the world for the very first time last month. Naturally, we learned about a huge array of games that will be released on the next generation, but Sony also provided a first look at the PS5 itself, as well as many first-party accessories that will go with it. Unfortunately, Sony still hasn’t announced the price or release date for the console, so it is currently impossible to pre-order it.
Sony hasn’t made it very clear when we’ll learn more about all of this, but during a stream that was discussing the DualSense controller, Sony’s senior vice president of marketing, Eric Lempel, stated that gamers would have plenty of advance warning in regards to when they could start pre-ordering. That being said, we can expect Sony to reveal ahead of time when the PS5 will be ready for pre-order, and they won’t just spring it on the gaming community out of the blue.
This statement from Sony has come very soon after rumors started circulating about the PS5 price, and consequently, pre-orders would be announced soon. Because of these rumors, Sony was forced to reveal that this was not the case. “We had nothing to do with it,” Lempel told Game Awards host Geoff Keighley during the DualShock stream. “I got a message from someone saying people are lining up at stores, and we had no idea why. We’ll let you know when pre-orders will happen. It’s not going to happen with a minute’s notice. We’re going to, at some point, let you know when you can pre-order PlayStation 5.”
As for the source of these rumors, they were partially instigated by the fact that Amazon has now put up a placeholder page for the PS5, with some information about the console. Because Amazon did this, almost all major retailers ended up following suit, which is why people felt that the pre-order for the console would be available soon.
But while the pre-order isn’t available yet, many retailers have opened sign-ups to notify people when the PS5 will be available to pre-order. We’ll cover which retailers are doing that below, along with all the other things we know about the PS5 right now.
Who is Accepting PS5 Pre-Order Alerts?
Best Buy, Target, and GameStop are all currently accepting sign-ups for people who wish to be notified. Amazon and Walmart have created PS5 landing pages, but they are not offering pre-order notifications like the others. Of course, we don’t know exactly when the PS5’s pre-order date will be. Sony provided no information on their June 11th live stream event, so it’s very likely that both price and pre-order info will be revealed late in the summer, most likely in August. However, it’s worth noting that this is just speculation and not a guarantee of more information at that time. There is a possibility that the PS5’s pre-order date was supposed to be earlier, only to be pushed back by the COVID-19 pandemic, but this too is speculation and there’s no concrete evidence to support it.
Ignoring any of that speculation, we’ve provided links to all of these placeholders from various retailers below, as well as the pre-order notifications from Best Buy, Target, or GameStop for your convenience.
PS5 placeholder pages at each retailer:
PS5 Release Date
So far, Sony has only said that the PS5 will be available during the holiday season of 2020. An exact release date hasn’t been provided. Traditionally, November has been a common month for console releases, but nothing is confirmed beyond the fact that PS5 is still releasing in 2020, so there’s no guarantee that November will be the month of the console’s release.
How much will the PS5 cost?
Seeing as how Sony has not released a price for the PS5 yet, we have no idea what the answer to this question is. Both models of the PS5 were revealed during Sony’s event, but neither of them actually received a price. In a press release following the event on June 11, Sony claimed that these important details would come to light “at a later date,” though that of course doesn’t really tell us much. Sony has said before that the price, when revealed, will be ‘appealing to gamers’ in relation to the specs of the PlayStation 5.
The Two Versions of the PS5 and their Accessories
The PS5 reveal event provided gamers with a glimpse of two different versions of the PS5 that will be coming to the public. That said, there is only one real difference between them, that being that the first model will have a 4K Blu-ray disc drive, while the second one will not. The latter is called the PS5 Digital Edition.
The PS5 reveal event also provided some insight into the types of accessories that the PS5 will have, at least as far as first-party accessories are concerned. Sony revealed a new headset, media remote, controller-charging dock, and camera to go with the new console, but no prices were revealed at the time that these accessories were announced. At the same time, there was no news regarding whether or not current third-party PS4 accessories will be compatible with the PS5.
More about the PS5
Naturally, the PS5 will play many brand-new games that haven’t released anywhere else, but it will also have backward compatibility for PS4 games. Both the old and the new generation have similar internal architecture, so this transition will be notably less difficult than the one that occurred between the PS3 and the PS4. That said, there has been no news on whether or not all PS4 games will be compatible with the PS5.
If it’s only a few that will be, we have no information regarding which ones. However, Sony did say that most games will run on the PS5–Cerny even stated that the vast majority of PS4’s 100 most-played games will be compatible with the PlayStation 5. According to Cerny, the reason some games aren’t compatible is because “the boost is truly massive this time around and some game code just can’t handle it.” This means Sony has to test every individual game to see if they can work on the PS5, so they can’t guarantee that every game will be compatible just yet.
As for games we know will be on the PS5, Sony revealed many titles during the June 11th game reveal, including Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Also revealed were Hitman III, Resident Evil 8: Village, and the Demon’s Souls remake.
A fair amount about the PS5’s specs has been revealed as well. One of the most noteworthy specs is a custom 825GB SSD with an expandable NVMe SSD storage slot, which will go a long way in reducing both install and loading times for many games—that said, not all NVMe SSDs will be able to work with the PS5.
The PlayStation 5 will also support ray tracing, 3D audio, and PlayStation VR, and it also has a 4K UHD Blu-ray drive. Sony has claimed that the PS5 will be advanced enough to support 4K resolution at a 120Hz refresh rate—such a refresh rate will be double that of most TVs, which usually only refresh at 60Hz.
Revealed earlier this year was Sony’s DualSense controller. Sony said that one of the goals of the controller is “to deepen the feeling of immersion when you play games.” The company then revealed two new features of the future controller that will help facilitate this. The first feature is actually an alteration in the replacement of its rumble technology with haptic feedback.
Coincidentally, this change is why they are dropping the ‘shock’ part of the old DualShock name. Sony says that “you truly feel a broader range of feedback” with haptics, which means “crashing into a wall in a race car feels much different than making a tackle on the football field.” Sony claimed that you will even be able to feel the difference between textures.
The second new feature has been labeled by Sony as ‘adaptive triggers.’ The company claims that it can simulate various actions, including “the tactile sensation of drawing a bow and arrow or accelerating an off-road vehicle through rocky terrain.”
As of right now, this is everything we know about the PlayStation 5. You can expect more updates as more information about the console comes to light, though it will probably be at least a month before anything new is revealed.
