A well-known gaming industry leaker has teased the final design for the long-rumored PlayStation 5 Pro console, with a sketch based upon the console’s consumer packaging.
It’s an unusual way for information of this kind to sneak out from under the covers, but the usually reliable billbil-kun states that the actual pack shots are subject to copyright restrictions. If official pack shots have been used as a source it does mean that the sketch should be accurate enough to infer not just the overall design but some of the finer details too.
In terms of overall look it shouldn’t be too surprising that it very closely resembles a regular PlayStation 5. There’s the central chassis flanked by two slightly concave finishing panels that are of course swappable on the base console. It probably wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that the Pro’s panels will also be swappable, with Sony likely to produce multiple colors and some custom, game-related items.
The Pro appears to join the facelifted PlayStation 5 in having lines down the panels to split each into two slightly uneven halves. On the Pro it looks like there’s three of these separating lines rather than one, and they appear vaned as if to contribute to heat extraction.
One thing that jumps out at us here is the apparent absence of a disc drive; the angle of the sketch isn’t sufficient to obscure where a built-in drive would go, and there’s no obvious disc eject button on the chassis — just the power button and two USB-C ports.
Of course the base console now comes with an optional BluRay drive that you can add to the digital version through a dedicated slot and replacement panel, and this looks like it could be the case for the Pro model too (and hopefully the exact same item).
Notably, Sony has yet to officially confirm the PlayStation 5 Pro console, but it has been among the very worst-kept of secrets for about a year now. In that time we’ve seen a few different versions of the specifications run through the rumor mill, but mostly centered on a large step forward in terms of the GPU which moves to AMD’s RDNA3 architecture.
We’re expecting the real thing to make an appearance in a special State of Play event sometime in September, ready to go on sale for the Holiday period in 2024. Pricing is anybody’s guess, particularly as base PS5 prices have once again increased recently in Japan to some ¥30,000 ($200) more than at launch in 2020, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the US price beginning with a six.
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