I’m sitting at my desk, staring at the PlayStation 5 looming over my media stand—“entertainment center” is a little too grandiose for the small piece of Target furniture that holds all my gaming stuff—and wondering how the hell I’m going to review this thing. How would my boss, whose various PlayStation 4 reviews I’ve skimmed several times so as to glean some insight into what I should cover, review this thing? How can anyone, at this very moment in time, review this thing?
Let’s start with the basics. PlayStation 5 launches next Thursday, November 12, in the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. It reaches the rest of the world one week later on November 19. It costs $499.99 USD (adjusted for other parts of the globe, of course) for the standard version and $399.99 USD for a digital-only version sans disc drive. It stands just over 15 inches (390 mm) tall and weighs a smidge under 10 pounds (4.5 kg). It is a beefy boy.
These specs, however, bely what the PlayStation 5 truly represents. It’s been almost seven years since Sony released the original PlayStation 4, a platform now known for producing some really great games. But it’s starting to show its age; more recent PlayStation 4 games cause the console, OG and pro alike, to wheeze and moan under the strain. It feels like developers have done all they can to wring every last drop of power out of the old girl before setting her out to pasture.
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