At long last, you may now finally be able to fit a new PlayStation 5 onto your TV cabinet’s shelf. On Tuesday, Sony’s PlayStation division revealed the new skinny form factor for the PS5, coming both with and without a disc drive and for the same price as the previous models.
The new version of the three-year-old PlayStation 5 does seem quite a bit slimmer than it had previously. Whereas the original PS5’s form factor didn’t change much depending on whether you had the regular or the digital edition, the new version has a large shelf to facilitate the Blu-ray disc player. Additionally, Sony added a black stripe running through the console’s outer shell. The embellishment does help break up the largely flat fish fin panels that PlayStation has maintained in the new version.
Sony Interactive communications director Sid Shurman wrote in a Tuesday blog post that the new PS5 is 30% smaller in size by volume compared to the first edition of the console. It should also weigh 18 to 24% less than the previous models, depending on if you have the disc drive or digital edition, respectively. Even better, the new console has 1TB of storage no matter if you get the disc drive or not. The original console came built-in with 825GB of storage, though with the OS installed that amounted to around 667GB.
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Sony did not provide precise weights and measurements, so it’s unclear whether the console weighs less than the first version of the PS5 or later versions. All the way back when it was first released in 2020, the PlayStation 5 was considered a big boy. It measured 15.4 x 10.2 x 4.1 inches and weighed just under 10 pounds. Every year after that, Sony has been secretly slicing fractions off the console’s total weight by changing up the internals. The 2022 version for the PS5 with a disc drive weighed 8.6 pounds, while the digital edition was brought down to 7.5 pounds.
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The consoles maintain their previous pricing, starting at $500 for the disc-based version and $450 for the Digital Edition. Sony increased PS5 prices in most regions except the U.S. last year, and the new console versions maintain those prices. The new version will be available starting in November for U.S. customers at the Sony Direct store and at other retailers.
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What’s more, if you have a Digital Edition and you happen to have some discs you can’t play, Sony says it will now sell you an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive separately for $80. Users will need to install this disk drive themselves, though that process seems relatively simple according to a photo included with the PlayStation blog.
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Though in a strange twist, the new console’s stand won’t work for supporting the console horizontally. The original PS5 included a stand that could stand the console up straight or on its side, but the slim version requires customers to pay an extra $30 for a specific vertical stand. The new version seems like it slots directly into the PlayStation, supported by a metal ring. Compare this to the original stand’s design, which included a plastic base that the console slid into.
Three years into the PS5’s lifecycle, Sony may have finally put an end to its stock issues that kept PS5s out of most players’ hands for years. With the new slim version, Sony may be looking for a kind of do-over this holiday season. While pandemic-era supply chain issues have waned to some degree, time will tell if Sony learned its lesson.
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