At Sony’s PlayStation 5 Showcase this afternoon, the final (and much awaited) pieces of the puzzle with regards to the console’s launch have dropped: pricing and a release date.
Sony’s next-generation console will launch on Thursday, November 12th. The full version of the console, which includes a Blu-ray disc drive, will launch at $499. Meanwhile the “Digital Edition” of the console, which foregoes optical storage entirely, will release for a surprising $399, a full $100 cheaper despite only giving up a disc drive.
This will put Sony’s launch 2 days after Microsoft’s own Xbox Series X/S launch, which is taking place on Tuesday, November 10th. The $499 price tag for the two companies’ respective flagship consoles will put them in direct competition, while the PS5 Digital Edition/Xbox Series S divide should prove far more interesting – if not a bit frustrating for consumers trying to make the best choice. The discless PS5 is every bit as powerful as its disc-capable sibling – making it a spoiler of sorts at $399 – whereas the Xbox Series S gets a significantly weaker GPU than the Xbox Series X. However at $299 the slimmed down console is cheaper still, and still gets to run next-gen games.
| Next-Gen Console Specs | ||||
| PlayStation 5 | PlayStation 5 Digital Edition | Xbox Series S | Xbox Series X | |
| CPU | 8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.5 GHz w/SMT | 8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.6 GHz @ 3.4 GHz w/SMT | 8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.8 GHz @ 3.6 GHz /wSMT | |
| GPU | 36 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 2.23GHz | 20 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 1.565 GHz | 52 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 1.825 GHz | |
| GPU Throughput (FP32) | 10.28 TFLOPS | 4 TFLOPS | 12.15 TFLOPS | |
| Memory | 16GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps | 10GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps | 16GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps | |
| Memory Throughput | 16GB@448GB/sec (256-bit) | 8GB@224GB/sec (128-bit) 2GB@56GB/sec (32-bit) | 10GB@560GB/sec (320-bit) 6GB@336GB/sec (192-bit) | |
| Storage | 825GB PCIe4 x4 SSD | 512GB PCIe 4 x2 SSD | 1TB PCIe 4 x2 SSD | |
| Storage Throughput | 5.5GB/sec | 2.4GB/sec | ||
| Storage Expansion | NVMe Slot PCIe4 x4 | Xbox Storage Expansion Card (1TB) | ||
| Disc Drive | 4K UHD Blu-Ray | No | No | 4K UHD Blu-Ray |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm |
| Launch Date | 2020/11/12 | 2020/11/10 | ||
| Launch Price | $499 | $399 | $299 | $499 |
Or if you’re in the mood for a PC (a platform we’re particularly partial towards), over the next couple of months we will be seeing new hardware launches there as well, including NVIDIA’s $500 GeForce RTX 3070, and AMD’s new RDNA2-based Radeon RX 6000 video cards. So there is no shortage of gaming hardware to be had this fall – at least if you have the cash.